- Theme Packs
- Themes
-
Preschool Planning
- Preschool Teachers
St Patricks Day Activities Theme for Preschool
St Patricks Day Activities- leprechauns, rainbows, shamrocks!
The possibilities for activities are endless.
They can range from information about the legend of leprechauns, colors, rainbows, shapes and more.
As you plan, check out our favorite St Patricks Day activities below!
This one day theme page is filled with activities and ideas for all areas of your classroom.
You'll find more themes to help you with your planning on my preschool themes page
Let the Theme Planning Begin!
You can scroll down through this page to see all of the preschool activities for your this theme.
OR, simply click the picture link below to go to specific preschool activity types you are looking for.
St Patricks Day Activities for Art
Bubble Rainbow Prints
Materials needed: cups, straws, water, dish detergent, paint in a variety of colors.
Fill each paper cup about half full with water. Add a few drops of bubbles or dish detergent. Add a few drops of paint.
The children insert the straw into the cup and blow until the bubbles come over the top of the rim of the cup. Then, place a paper on top of the bubbles. The bubbles pop into color on the white paper.
VARIATION: Just let the children blow until the bubbles cascade over the sides of the cups onto their paper. They can then switch cups to make another color!
St Patricks Day Activities for Your Block Center
Rainbow Roads
Place colored blocks in your block area. There are many available such as colored foam blocks, colored cardboard blocks (that look like bricks), etc. The children can make rainbow roads, cities and more!
Want MORE themes? Sign up for my FREE Preschool Teacher Tips Email Community!
You'll receive 1 free weekly theme starter pack each month!St Patricks Day Activities for Circle Time
Circle Time is such a great time for children to learn the social skills of being together as a large group AND to learn more about your St Patricks Day Activities Theme!
Which Color Is Missing?Bring different colored shamrock (or other colored shapes) of paper to circle time. Have children name colors. They cover their eyes, you take one colored shape away. They guess which color is missing.
We find that the same children tend to answer all the time. To prevent this, we work on patience and waiting our turns! We ask "Who wants a turn guessing the missing color?". ONLY the person whose turn it is can guess. They do develop better patience and waiting abilities over time!
Who Has THIS Letter?
Make 2 sets of 26 shamrock/clover shapes and program them with letters.
Give out a shamrock to each student. Keep track of the letters you give out. From the second set, only have those letters in front of you, face down.
Make up a rhyme such as: Letter, letter. Which shall it be? Who has the letter that's in front of me?
Flip over a letter shamrock and the children who have that letter will let you know that they have it!
You could also have multiples of many letters if you want to focus on specific letters. In this case, a few children would have the same letter.
VARIATION: This activity could be done for number recognition or color recognition as well.
Snack Recipe Ideas for Your St Patricks Day Activities Theme
Cooking with children helps develop their math skills and helps them to learn how to follow directions. It also allows for some great conversation! Ask many questions while cooking with your children to encourage conversation! Be sure to ask specific themed questions while making these fun snacks!
Irish Brown Bread
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/2 cups buttermilk
1. Heat oven to 400 (Fahrenheit)
2. Have all children wash their hands and discuss the importance of clean hands before cooking!
3. Combine all DRY ingredients in a bowl. Allow each child to put in something!
4. This recipe is best when mixed by hand, however, I usually have the children take turns mixing with a spoon!
5. Pour in the buttermilk.
6. Mix again with spoon. Then, the adult mixes by hand. It will be wet and sticky at this point!
7. With lightly floured hands, have children help you shape the dough into a ball.
8. Place on a floured cookie sheet.
9. With a knife, make a deep X in the top of the ball, widening the X with the knife as you cut.
10. Bake until golden brown (approximately 50 minutes).
11. Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes.
This recipe makes an loaf about 6-7 inches wide.
It might be fun to divide the bread into smaller amounts after step 6 and let each child make their own loaf! I have not done this with the children yet, so I'm not sure how long mini-loaves would need to bake.
St Patricks Day Activities To Transform Your Dramatic Play Area!
Leprechauns!
Provide green vests, jackets or hats for the children to be leprechauns. They can hide pictures of pots of gold for their friends to find!
St Patricks Day Activities For Your Easel
Go Green!
Provide yellow, blue and white paint to your easel and see the shades of green your children can make!
St Patricks Day Activities - Large Group Games To Help Your Preschoolers Build Their Muscles While They Have Fun Together!
Toss the Coins
Cover your bean bags with gold fabric. Toss them into a pot! Place a tape line on the floor for them to try tossing from a further distance.
Like What You See So Far?
Join my FREE Preschool Teacher Tips Email Community today and receive:
Weekly tips and planning ideas!
And, on the 1st of each month I'll email you a free
theme starter pack that includes a printable activity mat or game,
Calendar pieces, a playdough recipe and a song poster!
Join NOW and I'll also send you the theme planning forms I use!
It's all FREE? You in?
Just tell me where to send your goodies below!St Patricks Day Activities - Books for Your Library
Book Suggestions for the Library
(I LOVE Amazon, and some of the links below will take you to the Amazon website. If you do choose to purchase yours through Amazon, they do send me a few cents--which supports my coffee habit! )
Green Shamrocks by Eve Bunting
Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie de Paola
The Luckiest Leprechaun: A Tail-Wagging Tale of Friendship by Justine Korman and Denise Brunkus
Hooray for St. Patrick's Day! (Lift-the-Flap Book!) by Joan Holub
It's St. Patrick's Day by Rebecca Gomez
Shamrocks, Harps, and Shillelaghs: The Story of the St. Patrick's Day Symbols by Edna Barth
St. Patrick's Day by Anne Rockwell
St. Patrick's Day by Gail GibbonsSt Patricks Day Activities To Help Your Preschoolers Develop Their Small Muscles and Their Math Skills!
Rainbow Order
Materials: In advance, cut out arches of rainbow colors. Cut so that each color fits into the next. So the red arch would be larger than the next one (which is orange).
The children place the arches in order of size. When complete, you will have a semi-circle shape. I'll try to get a picture of ours loaded here soon!
Coin Sorting
Provide a large variety of coins Check out this awesome collection of plastic coins!
(You could use them for these activities AND have them for your cash register in dramatic play all year!)
The children sort them by attributes (size, color)
EXTENSION: In advance, precut pots (for pots of gold) and program them with numbers for the children to count the number of coins onto the appropriate numbers.
VARIATION: Program the pots with letters for the children to place coins on the letters for letter recognition.
St Patricks Day Activities for Music & Movement to
Get Your Preschoolers Movin' and Groovin'!Celtic Music
Play different types of Irish music (jigs, ballads, etc.) for the children to dance to. Suggest they dance to the tempo/speed of the song they hear. Add a "freeze dance" component by tell the children they need to freeze when the music stops.
There are so many choices! Being of Irish decent, I have so many CDs!
Check out Amazon's Collection HereSongs and Fingerplays
Rainbow
sung to the tune of Twinke, Twinkle Little Star
See the rainbow way up high,
Spreading colors in the sky.
Red and orange, yellow too
Green and purple hug some blue.
Watch it quickly, it won't last.
Rainbows can disappear fast!
St Patricks Day Activities for Your Sand and Water Table
Gold Digging
Add gold coins (or jewels) to your your and table!
VARIATION: If you have the glass multi-colored jewels, they are great fun to fish for in a water table!
St Patricks Day Activities for Your Preschool Scientists in Training!
Observing Bubbles
Materials needed: Bubble solution and bubble wands
At group time, talk about bubbles as you blow some. This will be a very excited discusssion! Ask the children to watch a bubble and discuss what they see.
Can they see the rainbow colors in the bubbles? Try flashing a flashlight on a bubble, observe in a dark area. Is it easier or more difficult to see? If possible, blow bubbles outside and ask children to observe and look for rainbows inside the bubbles. The rainbows are much easier to see when there is more light shining through them.
EXTENSION: Make your own bubbles!
Add 2/3 cup of Dawn or Joy dish detergent to 1 gallon of water and 1 tablespoon of glycerin. I've been told if you make this solution and let it sit for several days before using, it works much better. I'm not sure why!
Writing Ideas for Your St Patricks Day Activities Theme
The Story of The Leprechaun
Glue a shamrock shape on white papers in advance. As children come to the writing interest center, ask them to draw on the paper. As they are drawing, ask them to tell you a story about their shamrock. Write down their stories and display them with their pictures when they are done.
Miscellaneous Ideas for Your St Patricks Day Activities Theme
Dancing Performance
Call a local dance studio and ask if a few of the dancers will come and demonstrate a simple dance for your preschoolers.
St Patricks Day activities can revolve around this fun celtic music--and having someone perform a jig for your kids is so much fun!
Other Themes You Might Be Interested In:
Like What You See So Far?
Join my FREE Preschool Teacher Tips Email Community today and receive:
Weekly tips and planning ideas!
And, on the 1st of each month I'll email you a free
theme starter pack that includes a printable activity mat or game,
Calendar pieces, a playdough recipe and a song poster!
Join NOW and I'll also send you the theme planning forms I use!
It's all FREE? You in?
Just tell me where to send your goodies below!
Go to MAIN THEMES Page for more theme ideas!
Go to Preschool Plan It's Home Page
About This Site:
Hey there! Welcome to Preschool Plan It! I’m Cheryl, a preschool teacher of over 20 years.
I KNOW, I know, you spend hours of time developing your preschool themes, activities and preschool lesson plans each week. You are commited to planning preschool themes and activities that are engaging hands-on, interactive, fun AND meet the goal of supporting each child’s level of growth and development.
I am commited to providing you, the preschool teacher, with everything you need to develop preschool lesson plans and preschool activities for your classroom all in one place!
READ MORE
Join My Free Preschool Teacher Tips Newsletter
You’ll receive a weekly email with planning tips and teaching ideas.
You'll also receive (on the 1st of each month) a free theme starter pack with some printables and activity ideas to get you started planning a theme!Join Now and Get Your First Theme Right Away!
- Preschool Teachers
.%20The%20children%20sort%20them%20by%20attributes%20(size%2C%20color)%0A%0AFind%20this%20and%20some%20extension%20activities%20to%20use%20with%20your%20coins%20as%20well%20as%2029%20other%20St%20Patricks%20Day%20activities%20for%20your%20preschool%20classroom!){kind=link}