If you are looking for some St. Patrick’s Day activities for your early learners, you are in the right spot! I’m going to share with you a few things that your students will love!
Shamrock Craft
This St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Craft is a great activity that, when completed, will look awesome hanging in your classroom on a bulletin board or as window display. You might even want to hang them in the hallway for everyone to see!
This craft can be used with different age groups and is easy to prep. You simply copy the templates onto colored paper and, depending on the age of your students, they can cut out the pieces themselves and glue them together. In order to prep this for my three year olds, I would always cut out the pieces ahead of time. Their job was to assemble it using glue which is a great fine motor activity! Older children can cut the pieces out themselves which, in addition to fine motor work, is a great confidence building activity. If you are interested in finding out the benefits of doing crafts in the classroom, I wrote a separate blog post all about it called Crafts in the Classroom, click HERE!
Marble Painting
Early learners love to marble paint and this Shamrock Marble Painting is no exception. Now, I’m going to share a little secret with you. I know it’s called marble painting and I did marble painting for MANY years, BUT, I prefer to use golf balls instead! Whaaaatttt?? That’s right, golf balls. The size of the golf balls allows more color coverage and, to me, shows the colors better. But, that’s just my two cents, feel free to use whatever you like!
Whatever you choose to use, pick two or three shades of green and let them have fun rolling the balls back and forth over the shamrock until they like how it looks. Another secret, don’t cut out the shamrocks until AFTER the paint is dry. Cutting them out beforehand and then doing the painting can lead to curled edges. If you do the painting, let them dry and then cut them out, no curved edges! These also look wonderful displayed in the classroom because each one is unique.
Tissue Paper Shamrock
My last shamrock activity is great for fine motor skills as well as hand-eye coordination. First they will need to use liquid glue to put only one dot on each of the black dots on the shamrock, as pictured above. Now I know that some of you are anti glue bottles and prefer glue sticks or sponges, but teaching them the correct way to use a glue bottle is not only a great fine motor skill, but teaches them discipline and patience.
After doing their glue dots, they will take cut up pieces of green tissue paper and crumble or smush it so it can be placed on each of the glue dots. My class loved doing tissue paper crumble activities! The look of concentration on their faces and happiness in their finished product was always priceless!
St. Patrick’s Day Books
Doing all of these St. Patrick’s Day activities is a great follow up to some of your favorite St. Patrick’s Day stories. Here are some of my favorite books to use during this time of year.
St. Patrick’s Day Resources
If you are interested in any of the St. Patrick’s Day activities mentioned above, you can find them in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, Little Ray of Sunshine. All three of these activities can be found in this one resource, right HERE. Clicking on the picture will also take you there!
I hope you and your class have fun learning about and celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Be sure to follow my Facebook page where I share lots of other ideas for the classroom as well as my latest products!
Have a great St. Patrick’s Day!
