Happy Friday!
Please don’t read too much into this post title: The giveaway part is absolutely true. The pot of gold? Well, let’s just say that if a little green-clothed fella drops off a pot of gold for me, I’ll gladly share it with you!
I’m a big fan of St. Patrick’s Day. Perhaps it’s the Irish in me. Or there is that slim chance that it’s because I have a teeny tiny mischievous streak. 🙂 How about you? What will you and your students do on St. Patrick’s Day?
Share your St. Patrick’s Day plans (or a favorite St. Pat’s activity) before next Wednesday and your name will be entered in the drawing for our Pot of Gold Giveaway. I have a feeling there will be more than one lucky winner!
Smiles!
Diane
Congratulations to the winners: Liz, JAZ, and Colleen!
Shamrock Placemat/Picture
Need:
White Card Stock
Shamrock cookie cutters, varying sizes are great
Green crayons or markers
Green tissue paper
St. Patrick’s Day stickers
Give each child a sheet of card stock. Let them use the green
crayons or markers to trace around the cookie cutters to make the
shamrocks. Younger ones will need help with this to hold the cookie
cutter still. Next let them color them in if they will use it for a
placemat. They can also add some of the stickers to it.
If they are making a wall hanging, let them spread some glue inside
the clover design. Next, they tear off pieces of the tissue paper,
wad it up and then stick it onto the glue inside the design until
the entire clover is filled in. A great 3D design to hang on the
wall.
lisa
arabicangel2005@yahoo.com
I love to read St Patricks Day books – found a new one this year – St. Patricks Day by Anne Rockwell. Then we make a fruit loop rainbow. Then we have to find the pot of gold, so we go on a hunt. While we are gone the leprechauns mess up our room, so we have to go back and clean and organize the room. While they are cleaning they find a note with a “snack” of Lucky Charms.
For St. Patrick’s Day, I have my students write a note to the leprechaun. Then while the children are at lunch, he visits our classroom. He turns over chairs, moves their crayon boxes, and rearranges the room. He also leaves little pots with gold inside (Rolos). The kids are so excited. They talk about it for days!!!
We write a story about “If I was a Leprechaun…..” Also, I teach the Holy Trinity by using the Shamrock.
Each leaf is cut out like a heart and we write God the father on the top, Jesus the son, on the left and the Holy Spirit on the right. We do this in Honor of St. Patrick being a Bishop in the church. Plus, its a easy way for the kiddos to remember the trinity.
I am going to hide shamrocks in my childcare for the kids to find and have a pot of gold, chocolate coins, waiting for them! Then we are going to make rainbows and eat shamrock cookies! Then we are going to read, “The night before St Patricks Day!”
While my 5-year-olds are at recess, I put a note on the classroom door from Lucky the leprechaun saying he’s left clues to find his pot of gold. When the children come back and see the note, I read it and they follow the clues on shamrocks until they find the pot of gold(coins from the party store). I divide the coins between the children who can then keep them or turn them in for candy. I was surprised that some wanted to keep their coins. We then have green eggs and ham for snack and read Dr. Seuss’s book by the same name. I’m surprised how many like the snack if I can just get them to try it.
I have the children go on a treasure hunt through out our school and they end up back in our classroom where the leprechauns left a note that says
*Open the lid and take a whiff of my magic powder. What does it smell like to you? (instant lime pudding)
*Add 2 cups of cold milk. I left some in the kitchen fridge!
*Put the lid on tight.
* Take turns shaking the bowl while the whole class says:
*Leprechauns, Leprechauns
Shamrocks seen
Magic Powder
Green, green, green!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Leprechaun O’Reily
I haven’t done this for several years since our Spring Break always landed at this time, but that changed this year. The students love it.
I’m pretty sure this is an old but never forgotten idea from a Mailbox Magazine of course!
I’m borrowing someone idea for a writing activity. We are going to write to the prompt of “When has a bit of luck come your way?” and we’ll have the student’s writing on display for the rest of the month of March. I also have gold coin chocolates as special rewards and green bead necklaces for all of the students in my class.
Jill
All week the leprechaun plays little tricks moves things around etc. The children build a trap to get his pot of gold and I of course tear the trap as if they almost got him and place in gold choclate coins and a funny note about you didn’t really catch me. My favorite thing is I have a Parent who is Irish and plays in a Irish band. She brings her fiddle in and she plays for the children. The children get to be the snakes leaving Ireland and lots of movement goes on. Its always so much fun.
When my students arrive on St. Patrick’s Day the door to our classroom is locked. The leprechauns have messed up the room, tipping over chairs, spilling toys, etc. I of course do not have my keys to get in, so we brainstorm how we will get in the room.Eventually we find someone with a key and go inside. Also there is gold glitter on the floor of the classroom and hallway as a clue to the culprits! Mys students use the bathroom before going into the classroom…all of the toilets have green water!!!
The students help to clean up the leprechaun mess.
After breakfast we go to the gym to play Leprechaun tag. When we get back to our room the door is locked again and another mess is there! Next we make green derby headbands with shamrocks on so we can look like the leprechauns. Next we make “traps” with blocks etc. baited with gold painted rocks “gold”. We find a shamrock with clues to finding the pot of gold….and follow them throughout the building. My students must describe what the leprechauns look like as we go along. Eventually we end up back at the classroom…door locked!! Traps sprung!!! Find the pot of gold and also leprechaun pictures hidden all over the classroom. Read St. Patrick’s Day story and go home! Prior students get very excited for us as we have our adventures!
Our fourth graders are studying poetry. My class will be writing limericks and decorating them on shamrock cut outs.
Since I only have guided reading that day because of PT conf., we’ll just work on a fleucy piece.
My pre k class built a leprechaun trap in the beginning of March. The leprechaun has taken the bait but hasn’t been caught yet.
The day before St. Patty’s day, the leprechaun leaves a letter for the class. He tells them he was playing in our dress up center last night. When he cleaned up, he miss placed his shoes and socks. If we find them and leave them for him, he will leave us a treat. (I painted a pair of baby gap sneakers green) The children hunt for the sneakers and socks. We leave them for the leprechaun and when we return from the playroom, he has left us a pot of gold coins. This year he is leaving corned beef and cabbage too. We will see how that goes over!!
We set up a trap – I ask the kids what would we need what should the bait be etc. how is that part of the trap going to work to make them think ahead. All week the trap is not sprung, when we come in in the morning no leprachaun, but after we go outside and come in — our room is topsy turvy that nasty little critter wrote all over our windows made a huge mess and there is glitter everywhere and our gold is gone – the only thing left is a tiny little hat!!! (He does leave little gifts for the kids tho – we do the green in the toilet and silly string everywhere too. We finger paint with yellow and blue to make green shamrocks, we make a hand print leprechaun and we write our names on shamrocks attached to a little pot of gold. I give them a writing prompt – If I were a leprachaun I would hide my gold….. (Pretty sure that was a Organize Now mailbox edition preschool!)
During the night (after school) a little green man (me)destroys the classroom (turns desks over etc…) and even leaves behind green foot prints and gold coins! The children come the next morning and can’t believe their eyes and get my classroom to undergo a little ‘spring cleaning’, it works out for all of us! ; )
Each year, St. Patrick’s Day falls during our spring break. I wish we were in school on that day. So many teachers have shared such awesome ideas!
I teach a K-1 combo and we will celebrate all week.
-Make green milkshakes
-100 four leaf clover hunt
-Make leprechaun traps
-Write about why we are lucky
-Sort and graph lucky charms
-Create an Irish word picture dictionary
-Read Irish folktales and Compare them to american folktales
I teach Special Needs Preschool. Every year, we combine with the regular education class and have a mini-party. When the students come in, the room is a mess from a “leprechaun” visiting, accidentally leaving glitter footprints behind. We do 4 activities with the students. One group makes “magic pudding”, with green food coloring hidden in a vanilla pudding cup. Another does a Lucky Charms graphing project. A third group plays limbo with St. Patrick’s Day limbo sticks. The final group makes pots of gold from sections of toilet paper tubes with rainbows made from 1/2 paper plates, which they paint.
I am a home childcare provider. We started this week, doing a color each day for artwork. Red, orange, yellow, green and blue are up, so we will do purple on Monday. The kids have been making leprechaun traps. It was their idea to use all of the leggo doors and windows to trick the leprechaun. Pretty cute and clever for a four and six year old! We’re reading A Fine St. Patrick’s Day by Susan Wojciechowski and Too Many Leprechauns by Stephen Krensky. For the babies, I will do green footprints for their parents. We will have green milkshakes on Thursday, next week, which also happens to be our oldest’s birthday! We all wear green. He has been turning our milk green for the past few years and often rearranges the furniture, but I do not know how he does that! So far the leprechaun has been spotted, but not caught. I am making a list of what to buy with my share of the gold! Thank you for all of the above ideas and thank you for the chance to win!
We are writing poems and searching for gold (spray painted rocks) Also, I take pictures of the kids and using an editing software, tint the pictures all green. The kids LOVE seeing themselves this way!
when the little leprechaun comes to school messy things up ,turn milk green leaves gold . And the traps we set for him !it a fun week
We will wear green. A leprechaun will mess up the room. We’ll practice our spelling words in green pudding or shaving cream. I also have them write about how they would catch a leprechaun and tell what they would do with the gold.
I teach PPI we will have green shakes that day.
Circle time fun…put large green shamrock cut from poster board in the center..have the littles go “find” green items to place on the shamrock. When filled compare the different colors of green.
We will have green jello with “gold” pieces inside (mandarin oranges since most of my preschool children do not care for pineapple) for snack.
We will also make leprechaun hats, friendship bracelets using cut paper towel rolls (inside) and stickers, and shamrock suncatchers!
My preschoolers will go on a Leprechaun hunt outside and either me or one of my assistants will flip chairs over and mess the room up. Then we will make our way in to find a treasure of shamrock cookies waiting for the kids and a note from the leprechaun. We will also read St. Patrick’s Day books and other fun stuff.
Oh we have lots of fun! My kids share their leprechaun traps they created with the class, we eat and enjoy our green snacks the kids brought to share, go on a leprechaun hunt and take lots of amazing pictures! I really do enjoy celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with my kiddos!
St. Patrick’s Day falls during our spring break this year. However in the spirt leading up to spring break the students made cereal rainbows, graphed shamrocks, coins, horseshoes,and rainbows..a center activity worksheet. We created our own rainbow complete with pot of gold and Leprechaun.
At the listening center they listened to The Night before ST. Patrick’s Day.
I do enjoy all the ideas shared here and will keep adding to my list for next year!
May the green be with you.
Think Green! Not only is it a fun day wearing and celebrating everything green. Recycling is also a topic of the day….go green! Art projects using as much green & recyclables as possible record the day in a fun and festive celebration.
We serve green milkshakes. All the children in the school dress in green for the day. We also make lots of crafts from shamrocks to leprechauns. We have also had a scavenger hunt on St. Patrick’s day with rolos as their pot of gold at the end. We also talk about how rainbow are made and the colors in the rainbow to turn things into a science lesson.
I play Irish music and of course everybody wears green. I make sure my K’s all have a green shamrock on thier clothes (just in case, they missed wearing the green). We will use lime sherbert and Sprite to a green punch. We will make a leprchaun puppet and some rainbows and pots of gold. We will read some St. Patrick’s Day stories and a Sammie the Snake (I can’t remember where on the internet I got it). Sammie the Snake is about how St. Patrick chased all of the snakes out of Ireland.
We wear green and we have a lot of fun painting with green paint and reading St. Patrick Day stories!!
We will all wear green of course! Then we will make some sort of green food – haven’t decided what yet. I love the idea of green milkshakes. I was going to make green jello jigglers, but the milkshakes sound so much better!
I hope everyone has a fabulous St. Patrick’s Day!
My students study Ireland the week before St.Patrick’s Day and I read an Irish story about a giant potato. On the day before St. Patrick’s Day each child decorates and paints a potato green. On St.Patrick’s Day we have a “potato parade” holding our green potatoes with our Leprechan hats on and our class parades around the main wing of our part of the school. I play a tin whistle and wave Irish signs. We also celebrate by making shamrock shaped sugar cookies decorated with green sprinkes.
Libby C.
We make a magic potion. I use pistachio pudding. Pour the powder in a bowl and leave the bowl somewhere in the room. This way the students think the leprechauns brought it. I leave a note for the students that explain the powder is a secret potion and that the special ingredient has been left in the refrigerator. Once I pour in the special ingredient (milk) I place the lid on it and we each get a turn to shake the potion. As we pass it around and shake it, we will chant – Shamrock, Shamrock, Leprechaun seen, magic potion turning green. The students are amazed when I open it and it’s green!
First, we take a poll on everyone’s favorite Lucky Charms cereal marshmallows.
Then, we color the flag of Ireland while listening to Celtic music.
In the science center, we use different colored glasses to “Look at life through a rainbow” and also practice mixing colors.
In math we practice counting, adding and substracting using plastic gold coins. Everyone that works hard earns a chocolate gold coin when we’re finished.
In reading and writing I ask the children where they would want to go if they could slide down a rainbow and land anywhere they wanted. We eithr hang up their pictures on the wall or combine them all to make a book to add to our reading corner.
One year a parent volunteered and suprised the kids by bringing “Lucky Leprechan Juice” (aka green kool-aid) and “Rainbow bites” which were really rice krispie treats made out of Fruity Pebbles cereal.
We didn’t have much opportunity to enjoy festivities before break, but we have been doing St. Patty’s day themed worksheets and projects all week.
Students also made shamrock necklaces with a piece of yarn and a hole-punched foam shamrock that I purchased at Michaels.
As a special treat, I made each student a mini goodie bag using shamrock covered cupcake tins. Each tin had some St. Patty’s Day themed stickers and a gold coin in the bottom. I then placed an inside-out tin over the top of the first tin (so the shamrock pattern was right side up), and on the top layer included a foam shamrock sticker, piece of gold wrapped chocolate, and a tiny rolled up leprechaun message. The kids loved the tins!
I am planning to hide hidden treasure in my classroom. My class has to guess which rainbow trail to follow in order to find the treasure. Once we find the trail we are going to estimate and count our treasure.
Usually we read a Leprechaun story or poem and work on fluency. Sometimes we do a play. I do shamrock alphabet and sight word activities with my kindergartenders. This year we are testing so we won’t be doing anything.
We’ve been focusing on rainbows.
We did an art activity where the children painted colour stripes on a sponge and then pressed the sponge onto the paper, then swiped it across the paper to make a rainbow. You can check out my blog to see the results.
Also we are doing the carnation coloured experiment. We filled 6 milk jugs with coloured water then put a white flower in each one. We’re watching to see what happens.
We are doing our state tests on St. Patricks Day so I can’t be very creative. Sorry 🙁
P.S. I will wear green though!
Each student makes a rainbow using Their favorite color, shirt color, color of their fav food. I put green food coloring in ice cubes then students add the ice to sprite & observe the changes n matter
My 3 yr old students will be wearing green clothing to school on Thursday the 17th. We will be making Shamrock Hats and then we will take their pictures. We will then do a Shamrock craft (using tagboard and tissue paper). Then we will have a clover hunt around our classroom. For snack we will be having a snack that has Lucky Charms, Kix Cereal, and M & Ms mixed all together and each child will get a ziploc bag full. They will then do a ‘treasure’ hunt in our water table that is stuffed full with green paper grass and they will be searching for special gold coins. We have a great day planned for the kids!
We have been reading James and the Giant Peach for our reading unit. We are going to make the green crystals that he received from the old man.
We do a week of rainbows and St Patrick’s day. The children paint rainbows with glitter paint, make leprechaun/rainbow hats,hunt for gold coins in colored rice and read many books. I ask them to complete the sentence If I found a pot of gold … and draw a picture to go with it. We then make a class book. On Thursday, while we are at chapel the leprechauns will mess up the room and leave a plate of shamrock cookies for us. We will make a green drink using a magic potion (lemonade mixed with blue food coloring) and use the marshmallows from Lucky Charms for a math project. The children are all wearing green and rainbows.