Learning Activities and Games to Play for St. Patrick's Day

Are you planning ahead for March?  I have some ideas to make March a little more fun in your classroom. Check out these activities covering St. Patrick's Day and March is Reading Month.

Spin and Multiply Bump - St. Patrick's Day Edition

This game is a big hit with the 3rd grader that I tutor.  She loves playing bump to practice math facts.

To play St Patrick's Day Bump:

1. Use a paperclip and pencil as a spinner (or use your own spinner) and then ten markers/math manipulatives for each player. 
2. Spin and multiply that number by the big number in the corner (there is a different board for numbers 1-10.)  
3. Find the answer and cover it.  
4. If another player's markers is on the spot you can bump it off.  
5. If you get two markers on the same number, you lock it and can't be bumped.  
6. First one to use up all their markers is the winner.

Find St. Patrick's Day Multiplication Bump HERE

St. Patrick's Day Addition Bump Games

I also have an addition version of BUMP. Same fun St. Patrick's Day pictures, but this time students are building their fact fluency for addition.

To play St Patrick's Addition Day Bump:

1. Use a paperclip and pencil as a spinner (or use your own spinner) and then ten markers/math manipulatives for each player. 
2. Spin and add that number by the big number in the corner (there is a different board for numbers 1-10.)  
3. Find the answer and cover it.  
4. If another player's markers is on the spot you can bump it off.  
5. If you get two markers on the same number, you lock it and can't be bumped.  
6. First one to use up all their markers is the winner.

Find St. Patrick's Day Addition Games HERE

St. Patrick's Day Bingo

This bingo game includes 30 boards - each different.  There is a colored set and a black/white set.  Just pick the way you want to print and play.  Easy and simple way to fill time and practice St. Patrick's Day vocabulary words.

Find St. Patrick's Day Bingo HERE

Classroom Book Awards

In March, we always celebrated March Is Reading month. We always planned school wide activities throughout the month to promote reading. I liked to do something special in my classroom to get my students excited about reading.  

One year, I decided to do classroom awards for the books in our class. I decided on categories ahead of time and then explained each category to the students. They each had to come up with one book to fit one of the categories.  

They had to write about it and illustrate it and explain why that book should be the winner in that category.  They could use any book in our classroom library or any book I'd used as a read aloud (my teacher books we called them).  

After, we shared all of our nominations and wrote them down, we added other books to even out the lists.  

Then the students had all month to read as many books as they could from the nomination lists. At the end of the month, we voted and announced the winners.  

The winning books got a special award to stick on their covers.  Included in this file is detailed directions, category ideas, nomination forms, category lists and printable awards.

Find Class Book Awards HERE

Catch A Leprechaun

This was one of my favorite activities to do with my 2nd graders on St. Patrick's Day.  

I would have all the students bring in junk that would normally be in their recycling bins at home - paper towel rolls, boxes, cardboard, plastic containers, etc.  

Then, the students took turns picking junk from the pile to make a leprechaun trap.  After they designed the traps, they had to write a how to piece to explain how they built their traps.  

Finally, we shared their writing and their traps with the class.  

This file includes directions, parent letter, planning sheets, writing paper and special notes for the leprechaun to leave behind.

Find Leprechaun Traps HERE

St. Patrick's Day Task Cards

These task cards are Common Core aligned for 2nd grade and I have a math version and an ELA version.  Both include 32 cards, student recording sheet and answer key.

The cards come in color and black/white.

Some of the topics included in the math are:
-expanded form
-word form
-place value
-addition and subtraction story problems
-even & odd numbers
-telling time
-counting money
-double & triple digit addition and subtraction (with & without regrouping)
- comparing & ordering numbers, fractions.  

Find St. Patrick's Day Math Task Cards HERE

The topics covered in the ELA version are: 
-parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns)
-synonyms and antonyms 
-proper nouns
-alphabetical order (ABC order)

Find St. Patrick's Day ELA Task Cards HERE

Those are just a few ideas for what you can use in March in your classroom. I hope your little leprechauns have fun learning and playing games during the month of March.