Congratulations teachers and student teachers- we’ve made it to Spring! (Just about, on my behalf). I love sharing my March/Spring resources, especially when they’re based around ST. PATRICK’S DAY!

Seeing as I’m an Irish Teacher living abroad, teaching international children about St. Patrick’s Day is so exciting for me. I like to make sure I incorporate the Irish theme in all my lessons from English Reading Passages to teaching Irish phrases! In this blog post, we will chat about all of these fun March classroom activities and how to implement these in your classroom, alongside your day-to-day lessons.

St. Patrick’s Day- Freebies

Like anyone, I love a good freebie! Coming up to any themed/seasonal days I always like to have a bank of resources and ideas to click into when needed. While I often purchase or make the resources myself, I also spend hours on Pinterest, searching for fabulous freebies to use too! Below are some of my favorite St. Patrick’s Day freebies, click the photograph to find and follow the links!

I especially love this ‘Magic Fizzing Shamrocks’ idea! It’s so unusual and creative that your children are bound to remember St. Patrick’s Day for many days to come!

St. Patrick’s Day- Reading

Bring out your Irish pride and passion by engaging with this Persuasive Passage about Ireland! You can use this passage and questions in your intervention groups, guided reading groups, whole class reading or as an individual task! The aim of this passage is to persuade people to visit the Emerald Isle, outlining its beauty from its landscapes to its tourist attractions. The children will need to answer retrieval and inference based questions, as well as rating how likely they are to visit Ireland now, having read the text. The useful thing about this resource is it can also be used as a model text/stimulus for your ‘Persuasive Writing Unit’, as it contains all the necessary features to teach children about persuasion. I’ve included some photos below of this idea for you to pinch for your own class. You can also extend this to use as a St. Patrick’s Day Writing Activity too.

St. Patrick’s Day- Music

Dabbledoo Music have created a FABULOUS course for Seachtain na Gaeilge, based on traditional Irish Music like this TUNE below. Children can learn about traditional Irish songs and instruments. Dabbledoo have even created a FREE poster to download pictures of the different Irish instruments.

Click here for a link to their Seachtain na Gaeilge course. (AF)

St. Patrick’s Day- Crafts

Paddy’s Day craft ideas are endless!! I could spend all day trawling through Pinterest, awing over the wide variety of simple, effective crafts that teachers get up to with their class. Below I have attached a number of ideas that I found, in which I couldn’t pass by! Links will be below each image (just click on the captions)!

 

St. Patrick’s Day Maths

I don’t know about you, but when it’s themed lessons or a special day, we struggle to get “normal” work done with the excitement and fun activities to get through. However with some of these resources below, you’ll get through both your Maths and St. Patrick’s Day theme simultaneously! (Click the picture to get the resource’s link).

St. Patrick’s Day Activities: Irish Greetings

As teachers, we know that there is no more fundamental skill than reading. Why not challenge your children to learning how to read and say Irish greetings? I teach a class with children from all over the world and they love a challenge! By using my St. Patrick’s Day: Irish greetings activity, children can use the pronunciation guide to teach their partner some basic Irish greetings. Hearing and seeing children speaking the Irish language always makes me feel at home on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s an activity that students absolutely love, and you will, too!

I hope that you are now feeling a little less stressed about having to search for St. Patrick’s Day activities. The month of emerald green is almost upon us, so prepare those display boards to be filled with shamrock crafts and activities!

Go n-éirí an t-ádh leat!

(Good luck)