No, I'm sad to report that I'm not a day EARLY but rather almost a week LATE in joining Lindsay's Manipulative Monday Linky Party:
But, I guess as they say, better late than never!!!

With Valentine's Day behind and looking forward towards the next holiday (St. Patrick's Day) I thought I'd share some finds that I have so you have time to get them, if you're interested in using them for your classroom.

First stop is the Dollar Tree.  There you'll find foam Shamrocks.
These are too big for my felt staff board but I have some other uses for them.
Use number 1, comparatives:
These are great for kindergarten, especially with chants.  Chants are so versatile for comparatives because you can say them any way.  You could have them all turned over, like in the first picture, and then have the students pick a shamrock and have the class perform it that way.  If you want to use it as an assessment, then have that individual perform the chant by themselves, using the shamrock that they picked.

Use number 2, rhythm:
Using a sharpie you can easily tailor these to use with whatever rhythmic concept you're working on.  They could be used for dictation, composition, etc.    Additionally, you could also do the same with putting solfa on the shamrocks and making tone ladders to practice whatever melodic concepts you are practicing OR preparing at the time (if preparing you simply would have some shamrocks that have a "?" on them)

The other manipulative can be found at good old Oriental Trading.  These are foam shamrock beads and come in three sizes and a couple different hues of green:

These can be used a few ways.  First for rhythm prep of ta & ti-ti.  I know that my first graders are past that but I might try some short/long patterns with my kinders:

The other way I'm going to use these is with my Shamrock Shuffle Melodic Files games, specifically with as a stick to staff activity.  The students will see a stick notation pattern, such as this:

and then using the medium sized shamrock write it on the staff.

They can also use them to write known patterns on the staff, such as this phrase of Rocky Mountain:

Speaking of those Shamrock Shuffle Files, I'm currently running a little special.  For each file, the first five people that purchase and rate the file can email me and I will send them another Shamrock Shuffle file of their choice for FREE!  The Bundled Rhythm Set is also marked down to $15 until tomorrow night.

A special thanks to Lindsay for hosting the Linky Party!  Be sure to check out all the amazing ideas that the other participants blogged about!

Have a great week and check back on Wednesday for my FIRST time hosting a Linky Party!!