Below are some awesome shamrock activities and crafts to try with the kiddos this March. If you’re looking for even more St. Patrick’s Day goodness, you’ll love my collection of St. Patrick’s Day activities for preschoolers.
Related: St. Patrick’s Day Beginning Sounds
Celebrating holidays with kids is something I enjoy – both at home and school. I have to admit, though, that I adore creating a fun St. Patrick’s Day for the kids!
Since shamrocks are the official plant of St. Patrick’s Day, this is a perfect opportunity to dive deeper into the cute little green plant. While your students are busily with their shamrock activities, you can also regale them with stories, songs, and facts about shamrocks.
Ask them if they’ve ever found a four leaf clover. You can tell them what the three leaves on common clovers represent (faith, hope, love), then ask them to guess what the fourth leaf could mean (luck)!
If you plant some shamrock seeds in your classroom, you could have shamrocks growing by St. Patrick’s Day. Here are some fun shamrock garden ideas for kids.
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Shamrock Activities
St. Patrick’s Day is obviously a fun and festive time of year, which gives us a little help when teaching kids. These shamrock activities will not only get them in the mood to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, they’ll get to explore all sorts of different materials while they are soaking up some early learning.
Click on the links below to explore all the shamrock fun. Further down are some ideas for books and supplies to round out your St. Patrick’s Day shamrock activities and make them even more educational!
Shamrock Art and Crafts
From creative thinking to fine motor skills, these shamrock art and craft activities will give your students plenty of opportunities to make something they are proud of, while learning and having fun.
Our beaded shamrocks are a hit with preschoolers, giving them solid fine motor practice and a cute shamrock to hang up!
We love this sparkly shamrock sun catcher from Fantastic Fun and Learning as a super-easy shamrock craft.
Hands On As We Grow’s shamrock window craft looks great hanging up in the windows of your classroom or at home.
Shamrock spin art is just one of the crafty shamrock activities Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds shares for the holiday.
Your kids will love to help make a DIY shamrock applique shirt they can proudly wear all through March with this craft from Buggy and Buddy.
Scrunchy shamrock art from Fireflies and Mud Pies is all sorts of textured, 3-dimensional crafty goodness for St. Patrick’s Day!
It’s all about the color green with these wine cork shamrocks from Crafty Morning. Your kids will want to stamp everything!
Salt painting is always magical, and this rainbow shamrock salt painting from Rhythms of Play gives shamrocks a colorful rainbow twist.
This shamrock twirler craft from I Heart Crafty Things will have your kids mesmerized (and give them some painting practice).
Math and Literacy Shamrock Activities
Your students will feel like they’ve discovered gold with these literacy and math activities. They will work on strengthening their reading and letter skills, and also get a bit of hands-on math practice.
Our St. Patrick’s Day calendar numbers will give your students endless opportunities to practice early math skills while having fun!
Active and exciting games to practice math? Yes please! Your preschoolers will love this shamrock math race from The OT Toolbox for Coffee Cups and Crayons.
Real Life at Home’s shamrock printable books lets emerging readers work on their colors and words, and you get three versions to choose from!
Shamrock sight word sorting from Still Playing School gives preschoolers plenty of hands-on practice with shamrock-shaped word cards.
I love how many skills preschoolers will practice with this creating shamrocks with blocks idea from JDaniel4’s Mom.
Here’s a cool way to pair up a book on shamrocks with actually planting some. Your kids will love reading the book and then getting their hands dirty with this read and grow shamrocks activity by Growing Book by Book for Pre-K Pages.
This clover lacing card from Carrots Are Orange is a super way for kids to get some quiet fine motor practice in this St. Patrick’s Day.
Shamrock Science and Sensory Activities
Your students will have so much fun with shamrock science and sensory play. They get to squish slime, play with cloud dough, and learn about basic chemistry.
Kids love to get their hands on slime! Shamrock Slime from Messy Little Monster will engage their senses in the ooziest way.
These beautiful shamrock salt crystals from Fun With Mama will have your kids learning science concepts without even realizing it.
Ahh, foam dough! So much sensory and fine motor fun with this shamrock foam dough from Crayon Box Chronicles.
Our shamrock sensory bin is a snap to set up and will have your kids elbow-deep in dried legumes while playing with shamrock shapes.
The shamrock sensory bags from A Little Pinch of Perfect are a great way to work those little hand muscles and give kids a fun sensory break.
Preschoolers will adore pretending to be scientists with this shamrock science experiment from Teaching Ideas.
Little Bins For Little Hands shows you how to set up the ultimate invitation to play with this shamrock play dough station.
Straws add a fun and challenging twist to this fine motor shamrock sensory bin from Mommy Evolution.
Shamrock Treats For Preschoolers
Obviously we need to refresh our little leprechauns with some shamrock treats. Kitchen skills can teach math, fine motor, science, literacy, AND sensory skills, and they’ll love the end results!
Pretzel pop shamrocks from Real Life at Home look both festively adorable and delicious!
You can’t pass up an opportunity to bake shamrock cookies with your preschoolers! From Still Playing School
Which of those sham-rockin’ ideas would your kiddos be most interested in? How do YOU create a fun St. Patrick’s Day for kids?
Materials to Use With Shamrock Activities
Shamrocks are the quintessential symbol for St. Patrick’s Day, and luckily there are so many fun materials available to us to use with the kids while having our shamrockin’ (highly educational, of course) good times. Here are some of my favorites if you are looking to refresh your St. Patrick’s Day supply bins.
Preschool Lesson Plans Done-For-You
Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes book suggestions, printable plans, over 30 learning activities (whole group, small group, and centers) related to the theme, and corresponding printables. Click on the images below to grab your own:
Originally published February 2015
So many fun and festive ideas here! Thanks for sharing!! 🙂
Thanks, Brenda! I love all of the different shamrock ideas the kids can get into!