St. Patrick's Day Archives

Coordinate Map Activity- Leprechaun’s Hiding Places

February 20, 2021 By Deirdre

Leprechauns need to change the hiding spot of their pot of gold often. There always seems to be someone trying to find it. This fun set called Leprechaun’s Hiding Places- Coordinate Maps Activity invites children to record the locations of various hiding spots a leprechaun could use.

Coordinate Map Activity Set

There are several versions of this activity that you can have your children use. Let me tell you a little about them.

Black and White Version Locate the Coordinates

This page invites children to find the location of each hiding place. Then they will record it on the chart. If you want to print this out and have each child work on this on their own, this would be a great sheet for them to do.

Color Version of Locate the Coordinates

Once again, your children will be invited to find the location of teach hiding place. After finding them, they will record their coordinates on the chart. After printing out the color set, you will want to laminate it so your children can use it over and over again in a center.

You Draw the Hiding Places on the Map

The chart on the worksheet displays the pictures and the descriptions of the objects that need to be on the map. Children will draw a picture for each hiding place on the map. Then write the coordinates for each of your pictures beside its picture and description below. They can place them anywhere they would like on the map. You may want to encourage them to draw small pictures. That will allow them to have one specific set of picture location coordinates to record on the chart.

Create Your Own Map

Finally, your children can create their own pictures and map. You will want them to record their pictures of the objects they want on their map on the chart. Then children can record a description of what that object is. Next, they will draw pictures of their objects on the map. Finally, they will record the location of their object on the map. You may want to encourage them to draw small pictures. That will allow them to have one specific set of picture location coordinates to record on the chart.

Getting the Coordinate Map Activity Set

You will need to download your copy of Leprechaun’s Hiding Places – Coordinate Map Activity to your computer. It is a PDF. You will need to have a PDF reader to open the set. I use Acrobat Reader.

Building Background on Mapping Skills

The books below feature mapping and map skills.

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Ways to Explore Each Coordinate Map Activity

On Their Own
In a Center
With a Partner
As a Whole Class

More Mapping Activities

Valentine’s Day Quilting Activity

Frog Pond Mapping Activity

STEAM Activity Celtic Knot Design for St. Patrick’s Day

February 22, 2018 By Deirdre

This STEAM activity invites children to use three arcs to create a Celtic knot design for St. Patricks Day. Children can create their own set of arcs or use the free set we have below. Many Celtic designs feature interlocks shapes. The Celtic knot is a very simple design that uses weaving to connect the three arcs. Children will find it easy to put together and beautiful to display.

Creating a Celtic Knot

Gathering the Supplies

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You will need to decide if you want your children to create their own arcs or use our STEAM Activity – Celtic Knot Design for St. Patrick’s Day. If your children are creating their own arc, they could use a protractor or a compass to create them. They could trace the outside of the protractor or draw arcs with the compass.

There are a variety of colors you could use to draw or print out your arcs on. We decided to use yellow arcs on green paper. You could put out a variety of colors for your children to choose from if you like.

Finally, you will need to put out scissor for your children to use to cut out their arcs and glue sticks to glue the arcs in place.

Constructing the Celtic Knot

Your children will start by placing one of the arcs facing down on their paper. It will look like the entrance of an underground tunnel.

Then they will place the second arc under the first one. The bottom of the second arc will need to join the left-hand side of the first arc. Your children could weave the upper section over the center of the first arc if they like. We left the whole second arc under the first one. It looked a little like a fish.

Next, children will place the third arc under the first arc. They will need to line up the ends of this arc so that its ends touch the ends of the other two arc. Your children could weave this arc over the under the other two arcs in the center to make it look fancy.

Finally, when they have the arcs arranged just as they want them it will be time to glue each of the arcs in place.

Yes, creating the Celtic knot is really this simple. As I mentioned your children could add more weaving in the center of the knot if they like. I think this simple Celtic knot turns out just as pretty.

If you like this activity, here are some more St. Patrick’s Day activities you can try with your children.

Straw Rockets with Leprechaun Pictures

Five Little Shamrocks Craft and Rhyme

Leprechaun Feelings Craft

St. Patrick’s Day Cookie Cutter Stamping

Sink or Float St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bottle

Countdown to St. Patrick’s Day with These STEM Activities

Straw Rockets with Leprechaun Pictures

February 21, 2018 By Deirdre

This is the fourth straw rocket set I have created for you. This one features a leaping leprechaun with gold coins. You will find several leprechaun pictures your children can use on their straw rocket. If they really love creating this one, you may want to have them make the Firework Straw Rockets or the Leap Frog Straw Rockets or the Ski Jumper Straw Rocket.

Straw Rockets with Leprechaun Pictures

Getting Ready for the Projects

Before children can create their straw rockets you will need to download the Straw Rockets with Leprechaun Pictures. You will find three different leprechauns in this set.

Links below may be affiliate links.

Each of your children will also need a standard and extra large milkshake straws to build their straw rocket.

Putting the Cool Science Project Together

Children will need to cut off a piece of the large straw about 2 and a half inches long. They will need to tape one end of the straw closed.

Then they will need to cut out their leprechaun pictures

Then they can be glued or taped to the section of the large straw. The feet of the leprechaun should be facing the taped end of the straw.

Finally, the leprechaun pictures on the straws will need to be placed on the smaller straw.

Making the Leprechaun Leap off the Straw

Children can hold the straw horizontally or vertically. Then they will need to blow as hard as they can. It is the strength of the air traveling through the straw that makes the leprechaun jump.

You can lay a ruler, tape measure or measuring tape on the ground. Your children can try to get the leprechaun to travel farther and farther down the measuring tool. You could even award a gold coin to the child that gets it to travel the farthest.

If your children love straw rocket activities here are some more I have created:

How to Make Firework Straw Rockets

Leap Frog Straw Rockets

Saint Patricks Day Snack: Leprechaun Dust

March 9, 2014 By Deirdre

Leprechaun are known for having magical and precious treasures. Among those treasures are leprechaun gold and leprechaun magic dust. I decided to create a leprechaun magic dust snack with my son for Saint Patrick’s Day. One of the special things about leprechaun magic dust is that it transform a simple snack like yogurt into a snack swirled with color.

Our leprechaun magic dust was made of pistachio pudding powder. Pudding powder has very little if any color when it is in its package. It may have slight scent to it, but it doesn’t reveal what type of pudding it will create until it is added to a liquid or a solid. I think a leprechaun’s magic dust may be just like that. You may not see that it is being scattered until it has drifted onto the object it is being sent to change. Since it truly doesn’t look like more than dust. I added a few shakes of gold sprinkles to add to the magic’s dust magical look.

The leprechaun’s magic dust could be added to almost any white food that your might like a pistachio flavor added to. (I know not all children will like pistachio. You could try lime jello for this project instead.

Here are some foods that I think would work:

Cream of wheat
Whipped cream cheese
Milk
Yogurt
Icing
Oatmeal

We used plain Greek yogurt as our base of the snack. My son loves Greek yogurt, but the plain variety needs something added to it I have been told. I think that vanilla yogurt would probably have worked well too. We avoided using a yogurt that would already have a strong flavor that would clash with the leprechaun magic dust for this project.

Saint Patrick's Day Snack- Leprechaun Dust with Yogurt

I happened upon black salsa bowls at the dollar store. They reminded me of the type of pot that a leprechaun might store his gold in. They came in a set of two so we each got to use one to create the Leprechaun Magic Dust Snack.

An old container from sprinkles was the perfect thing to house the magic dust. I filled the plastic container with the pudding mix before we started the project so that it would be a surprise to JDaniel. I did have him add the gold sprinkles to the container using a funnel.

Creating a mysterious and magical snack was a lot of fun. I think it would be great to do at home or in a classroom. The fact that this Saint Patrick’s Day Leprechaun Dust Snack changes color is really cool.

If you are looking for some other St. Patrick’s Day activities, you may want to check these out.

St. Patrick Loves Veggies

St. Patrick’s Paper Plate Emotions Spinner

23 St. Patrick’s Day Activities

St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Activities

Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Deirdre Smith writes/owns JDaniel4’s Mom. After twenty years as a elementary school and technology resource teacher in Northern Virginia, she became a stay at home mom in upstate South Carolina. Her blog features ways she and her 6 year old are exploring learning, crafting, creating healthy meals and living life to its fullest. Deirdre can also be found on her blog’s FB page. You can also check her out on Google+.

Getting Picky Eaters to Try New Foods: St Patrick Loves Veggies

February 28, 2014 By Deirdre

This post originally appeared as a guest post on The Iowa Farmer’s Wife. Some children love to eat whatever you put in front of them. Some children find one or two things they love to eat and make them their go to foods. Some children used to eat everything and then decided to stop eating foods they had previously loved for months. There are still more who have children who it is hard to predict what they will eat that are really picky eaters. Those of us who have happy eaters really are the lucky ones. The number of families with children that eat what they have before them seems to be rare. My sisters both have picky eaters.

One way to try to get them to eat veggies is to present them in a new way or form or variety. Below I have constructed St. Patrick’s head using a variety of vegetables. Some of them I knew would go over big with my son and some that were new to him.

My son loves sweet potato French fries. He could eat them all day long. I decided to try a variety that was a little spicy and a different shape from the kind I have purchased before. The shape change didn’t throw him. Thankfully he doesn’t really care what shape his food comes in. I know there are many of you that have kids that strongly prefer foods be the same shape and texture every time. My son did care about the flavor, he really didn’t like the spicy flavor. I gave him some ranch dip to go with the fries and they became edible and actually enjoyable to eat.

Saint Patrick’s hat is made of Italian green beans. This variety of bean is thicker and a little harder to chew than the super thin French cut green beans or traditional green beans. Again it is a change in texture and visual appearance from the green beans I usually serve. I got lucky that he really liked this style of beans. My son actually asked to have them for a snack later in the week.

The hat also has large peas in its band. Peas can be tricky with my husband and my son. They both prefer petite sweet peas. These were tolerated but, not loved at my house. Tolerated is still good. It means he was still eating the peas.
The final food in the hat is spinach. My son loves spinach. He requested that I put it in the meal. I am so lucky that he thinks it is delicious. Spinach has so many wonderful nutrients in it.
This veggie creation went over well at my house. I hope that if you have children that are limited in the veggie consumption serving them vegetables in a new and different way will cause them to change this.

If you are looking for more food creations to serve your children, you may want to check out my Food Creations board on Pinterest.
If you are looking for other St. Patrick’s Day food creations, crafts or learning activities, you may want to check out my St. Patrick’s Day board on Pinterest.

St. Patrick’s Day Activity Round Up

March 16, 2013 By Deirdre

Whether you are looking for a St. Patrick’s Day craft, game or learning activity, I think you will find a wide variety to choose from in this post. There are 15 different activities that come from nine different blog posts displayed in the collage. We had a wonderful time creating, learning and experimenting to create this posts. I hope you will too.

St. Patrick’s Day Activity Collection

The counting objects in books activity, hair gel letter practice bag and the paper plate emotions spinner. ( He is the third activity in the third row) All came from a post called St. Patrick’s Day Activities: Part One.

The three sensory activities at the end of the first row all came from a post called St. Patrick’s day: Part Two. We had the best time digging for shamrocks and stone potatoes in the the third activity in that row. Then we made a thatched roof house out of play dough and straws. Finally we transferred sticks using chopsticks.

The first three activities in the second row come from a post called Science for Kids- Experiments with Green. We painted with a magnet and a paperclip, painted with homemade chalk paint and made a borax shamrock.

The fourth activity in the second row is a watercolor rainbow my son painted to go along with a St. Patrick’s Day story I wrote. The post was called. Walking on Watery Way Toward Treasure.

The last activity in the second row is one my son and I did at the grocery store. I called the post Seeing Green at the Grocery Store. We had the best time looking for green foods that match the paint chip we brought with us.

We dyed carnations green and orange to match the colors of the Irish Flag in a post called St. Patrick’s Day- Read.Explore.Learn. You will see the fun vases we used in the first picture in the third row.

The goat puppet was made for a post called {An Irish Tale} King Puck- Read.Explore.Learn. King Puck is a festival in Ireland. During the festival a goat is selected to be the king for the year.

Creating a trap for the leprechaun was a blast. My son loved creating pulley and decorating an old clementine box.

Painting with ice cubes was an adventure that I shared in a post called Coloring for Kids: Ice Cube Rainbow Painting.

If you are looking for a special St. Patrick’s Day snack or lunch, I shared a post called 8 St. Patrick’s Day Snack and Lunches. I hope you will check them out.

An Irish Tale – King Puck Learning Activities

March 15, 2013 By Deirdre

King Puck I had never heard of the King Puck Festival in Killorglin before. JDaniel and I learned about it together when we read the book King Puck. The festival takes place every year in August. One of the highlights of the festival is picking a local goat to be King Puck for the year. In this Irish tale a lonely farmer has no one to talk to but his goat. He not only talks to his goat, but he reads to it as well. He reads the same books over and over again. He soon tires of the tale as do the fairies that gather to listen to him read at night.The fairies decide to do something to help the farmer and they cast a spell on the goat. The spell allows the goat to talk. The farmer is so happy to have someone to talk to.

Later he finds a flier about the King Puck Festival and decides to enter his goat in the contest. You will have to read the book to find out who wins and what the winner selects. I will give you a clue. The winner picks something that will help him read, explore, and learn.

What did we do to explore King Puck?

Sock Puppet

An Irish Tale - King Puck Learning Activities

Puppets are a great retelling tool. I decided to make JDaniel a King Puck sock puppet much like the Fox in Socks puppet I made for him last year. We used it for retelling and acting out the story.Number Sequencing

The goats line up to be judged in the King Puck contest. We lined up goats in number order. I am not sure that there were eighteen goats in the contest. We decided we need to have eighteen goats lines up on our kitchen table.

If JDaniel were older or had a better grasp on numbers, here are some other ways we could have explored number concepts with the goats.

Sorted by even and odd numbers.
Used the goats to make number sentences.
Place the correct numbers before and after the number placed on the table
Created word problems based on the goats

If you like this King Puck activity, here are some more book inspired learning activities:

How to Teach a Slug to Read

Sparky the Fire Dog Book Activities

Quest to Trap the Leprechaun in a Homemade Trap

March 13, 2013 By Deirdre

how to make a leprechaun trap with trap ideas

We have been talking about leprechaun at our house for years, but we have never tried to trap the leprechaun that keeps coming up in the stories I tell JDaniel. That is until this year. This year we created a leprechaun trap to see if there might really be one in our town.

Steps We Took to Build Our Leprechaun Trap

Quest to Trap the Leprechaun in a Homemade Trap

We dug through our recycling bin to find the perfect box to use for the trap and came upon an old clementine orange crate. It was just the perfect size for the trap and it had holes in the bottom that we could use to create a trap for the leprechaun.

We covered the top and sides of the box with green, brown, and tan shamrocks. I thought it would be fun to give the box a camouflage look. After all we were trying to camouflage the trap from the leprechaun.

Then we created a trap using a pulley with an applesauce cup attached to it. The pulley was made of a piece of yarn wrapped attached to an old spool. The other end of the string was placed through one of the holes in the back of the crate. The old spool was slipped onto a straw that had a pipe cleaner wrapped around it. The straw with pipe cleaner was placed through holes in the back of the crate. The ends of the pipe cleaner were used to secure the straw in place by spreading them out.

The end of the string behind the crate was pulled up slowly to raise the cup and then the end of the string was tucked underneath the crate. JDaniel put in some items he thinks are treasures to test it out.After a few attempts at raising the string, we added pipe cleaner segments to the ends of the spool to keep the string from coming off the spool and tangling on the straw.

Then we painted the box. We should have painted the box before we did the pulley tests, but we did it afterwards. We did remove the pulley system before we painted the inside of the box. The box was painted completely green on the inside. I thought it would be pretty.

The only real problem with the leprechaun trap is that there won’t be someone around to pull the leprechaun up in the middle of the night. Well, there might be. Dad may be up to have his midnight snack. JDaniel drew him an illustration of how the trap works. You will notice the leprechaun approaching the trap at the bottom of the page. I am to write out directions on how the trap work so my husband will know what to do.

The leprechaun trap won’t be tested out until St. Patrick’s Day. I have heard that is when leprechauns are most active. We will just have to wait and see. If we do catch one or temporarily trap one, I sure hope he leaves JDaniel a treat.

I promise to post how our leprechaun trap works out on our Facebook page on Sunday. I hope I will have little man to share with you.

Here are some of the stories we have told about leprechaun. JDaniel told me a few years ago that I ran over one in my car. I shared that adventure in a post called I Did Not Kill a Leprechaun. To this day I stand by my innocence. The thud JDaniel heard under my care was not a leprechaun.This post is linked to Mrs. Matlock’s Alphabe Thursday.

St. Patrick’s Day Recipes for a Mother and Son Lunch

March 4, 2013 By Deirdre

When JDaniel wandered into the kitchen to see what I was making for lunch, he said, “Yuck!” He really doesn’t like peppers. When he saw me cutting them up for a green pepper and tuna salad platter, he just couldn’t hold back his feeling about it.”This isn’t a lunch for you,” I told him, “This is a lunch for me!” I was glad I had planned for two St. Patrick’s Day recipes for lunch. This recipe wouldn’t have gone over well with him.

He seemed satisfied and relieved to know that he wasn’t going to have to eat it and headed back into the living room to look at library books while I got his lunch ready.

I personally thought it end up looking delicious. The tuna salad had a little sweet pickle and mayonnaise in it. The pepper mixed with the salad was yummy. I love a little crunch in my tuna salad. The orange cheese shamrocks cut up into small pieces and mixed with the pepper and tuna were wonderful.

What was the second of the two St. Patrick’s Day recipes for lunch?

JDaniel got a cold pizza made of butternut squash spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and fresh spinach. JDaniel loves fresh spinach. He eats it by the handful.

He also got a serving of a lime and mandarin orange jello salad with marshmallows. We made it together. I love that it has all the colors of the Irish flag in it. He just loves its taste. He will ask for it for dessert until the jello bowl is empty. I knew he would be thrilled to get it in his lunch.

Applesauce with green sugar sprinkles was also added to the lunch. Foods just seem to become special when you add sprinkles to them. JDaniel just loves to find them in his lunch.

Well, when he saw the lunch he was so happy! He loved every bit of it. Not only was it filled with favorite foods. I didn’t have any peppers in it.

Here are some more St. Patrick’s Day recipes:

Spinach Hummus with a Pepper Rainbow

Fruit and Yogurt St. Patrick’s Day Parfait

Irish Symbols in a Muffin Tin Lunch

What would be in your children’s St. Patrick’s Day Recipes for a delicious lunch?

Coloring for Kids – Ice Cube Rainbow Painting

February 27, 2013 By Deirdre

Coloring with dyed ice cubes in a roasting pan is a great way to work on blending colors and experimenting with them. Ice cube rainbow painting is an activity that does just that. This idea popped into my head last week and I really wanted to try it.

Sometimes when you get a great idea like ice cube rainbow painting, turns out better than you imagined. Other times you try it out and it just doesn’t work. I mean it turns into an outrageous mess.

The kind of mess that stays with you all day. I have made colored ice cubes before and haven’t had it be a huge mess, but this time it really didn’t work well.

Why Color for Kids with Ice Cubes was Messy?

The ice cubes started to melt as soon as they came out of the freezer. (I think our 18-year-old freezer is having issues and that might be part of the problem.) I barely had them in this roasting pan when I took the picture above. You can see the colors smearing all over the pan. When I tried to move the blue cubes, a small blue stream started to form. I decided to not touch them again and take a picture of the cubes right where they were.The ice cubes really should have been moved with tongs or a spoon. Instead, I used my hands. You can’t begin to imagine what they looked like by the time I was finished. Each of the colors above covered my hands from the tip of my fingers to the base of my palm. My hands were scrubbed and rubbed with soap and a special hand cleaner my husband keeps in the garage and they were still rainbow bright.My idea was to take them out to take a picture and put them back in the freezer for JDaniel to play with when he came home from preschool. The ice cubes seemed to get smaller and smaller as they sat in the pan. I decided not to bother with trying to put them back in the ice cube trays. This idea would need to be retried with new ice cubes.

So, I cleaned up the outrageous mess created by pools of color ice cubes and headed to school to pick JDaniel up. As soon as a walked in the door of this classroom, he asked about what I had done to my hands. “They are so colorful!” he said.I told him it was a coloring for kids experiment that didn’t go well and I would need his help to try it again. He liked hearing that he was needed to help.

We will do this coloring for kids experiment again! It really is a great idea! This time maybe it won’t be an outrageous mess. This time it will be a solidly froze idea that melts elegantly into pools of color. Coloring ice cubes for my kid and having them ice cube rainbow paint really will be fun! ( Cross your fingers and say a prayer!)

This post links to Alphabe Thursday.