St. Patrick’s Day Activities

We know March 17th is coming. And we know our little learners are getting more and more excited about St. Patrick’s Day. So let’s embrace their excitement… harness it… and use it for the greater good. Let’s talk about ways to make Saint Patrick’s Day more fun and engaging in your classroom. Get ready… this is a HUGE post full of Ideas… products to enhance learning… and freebies to grab up.

Sight Words Ideas St. Patrick’s Day Activities

Kinders can not ever have enough opportunities to work with sight words. Our job is to expose them to these words as many times as possible, in different ways, and sneak learning into their little brains by making it fun.

Check out this Secret Code Word activity that allows learners to break the code to make sight words and words similar to sight words. They use the code breaker sheet to match the numbers to the letters, making the words in pots of gold.

We practice using the colorful pots in small groups to learn how to do this task. Check out their amazing work! Then we use the printable in independent groups to master the skill. They worked perfectly in our word workstations or small groups.

Reading Comprehension with St. Patrick’s Day Activities

Literature has provided us with so many outstanding books to cover this holiday with. Here are a few of the books I enjoy using.

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We love the book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover. This reader has so many great learning experiences in it that include sequencing a story.  And this printable reader allows your readers to fill in the color word before the object.

 We have a reading comprehension game to go with the book. And a FUN sequencing activity as well.

Reading comprehension games are a HUGE hit in my classroom because my kids have no clue they are learning and reviewing skills. They know they are playing a game and they want to win! I love to keep data on these games too. I write the student’s name and mark slashes or checks for their answer. After dating the paper and writing the name of the book, and therefore I have great data for RTI if I need it.

Writing with St. Patrick’s Day Activities

But let’s not forget that OLD LADY. Check out these amazing {in my eyes at least} sentences and matching pictures.

STEM Activity Idea for St. Patrick’s Day Activities

We can use the idea of a leprechaun to build a trap. We use the idea that a leprechaun is about the same size as a crayon box, therefore, we use an empty box of crayons as our height measurement. We also will entice that tricky guys using a pot with one piece of GOLD in it. Here is what each team gets to work with:

They can collect almost any trap-building tools from the classroom. Here is an example of a team’s trap planning.

And the final product.

This group measured the container and determined that if they could get the leprechaun INTO the trap, he would not be able to get out! So their “design” is to have the toys around so he will come to play… then he will see the gold and try to get it. {Insert evil laugh here.}

Was my room a mess for 24 hours? Yep. Was my custodian surprised? Nope. Was it worth it? Absolutely. I loved stepping around 5 different sets of traps. And we were all surprised when the GOLD pieces were missing from each pot, but there wasn’t a leprechaun to be found.

That guy did trash our classroom though. There was a little message he left us in our art center last year.

Math Games for St. Patrick’s Day Activities

I love to add the novelty of St. Patrick’s Day into math as much as possible. Here is a time worksheet I turned into a game. I make copies of the worksheet and glued them down to a notepad. Then I laminated them and cut them apart.

Now we can write on the shamrocks instead of a worksheet. And I get to reuse it year after year. We also use these rainbows to write the numbers BEFORE and AFTER the given number.

And there are several versions of this. The set above uses purple numbers in the middle. This set below uses DIFFERENT green numbers.

We also used these erasers to make a fun-themed graph. This is a freebie so grab it here.

I also use the old pots from previous years to make a fun addition game. I take a silver Sharpie and write the answers on the pots.

 Then I take some two-sided counters and write math equations on them.

 My students solve the math problem and put their gold coins into the matching pot.

I also LOVE this addition activity. {It is a little tougher to grasp and it gets my kids thinking… We lay out one side of our rainbows and try to make the missing number in the middle. BOTH sides were added together to make the answer.

Do you see it? How about now?