St. Patrick’s Day is a super fun holiday that often gets overlooked in the grand scheme of holidays. I am constantly on the hunt for ways to engage and entertain my kids, but ALSO keep my sanity with three kids under three! Each of these activities is pretty low maintenance and the supplies are cheap. I got the majority of this stuff at Dollar Tree or Target. Doing holiday-themed activities with your kiddos does not have to be a big to-do! Keep it simple and fun.
10 Kid-Friendly St. Patrick’s Day Activities
1. Digging for Gold
This will be your messiest activity. Just remind yourself that messes make memories, and your kids will love it! Shaving cream is an incredibly easy clean up; just rinse the kids and everything else off with water. I actually think my kids’ favorite part of this was getting to rinse the coins off in the sink.
Instructions
Fill a bucket with shaving cream, add a few drops of green food coloring, and mix it up. Once it is mixed to your liking, add the leprechaun coins, mix again, and let your kids go digging for gold! Hint: I recommend using only a few drops of food coloring to dye your shaving cream.
Items Needed
Green food dye (I got this gigantic bottle on Amazon)
Shaving cream
Gold items (spray paint or buy)
2. Number Hunt
This is another activity with lots of wiggle room. I tend to make these based on what I can find at the Dollar Store or already have at home. I ended up finding green and yellow numbers at the Dollar Store, so we used those.
Instructions
The first step is to dye the rice green because it will need to air out overnight. This was very simple and easy. I got two 2-lb bags of rice from the Dollar Store. Dump the rice into a gallon plastic bag, add 2–3 tablespoons of vinegar, and a few drops of food coloring. I started with 10 drops and added more until I got the color I wanted.
Take some shake breaks to mix it all up, as it dyes very quickly. Then leave the bag open to air out overnight. Dump the green rice and numbers into a bucket, mix, and let the kids go hunting. If you want to take it a step further and add some math skills, you can write the numbers on a piece of paper and have the kids match them as they find them.
Items Needed
Numbers (spray-painted gold)
Green food dye
Rice
Optional number match page (draw or print)
3. Counting Gold
The teacher in me is always looking for fun, skill-based activities. This is the easiest and most versatile activity because you can make it any theme and it never gets old.
Instructions
Spray-paint a bag of lima beans gold—make sure to give them a day to dry. Once you have dry beans, jump in and roll those dice. I found large foam dice at the dollar store. If you have smaller kids, the bigger the dice, the better. I would have ordered these if I didn’t find any at the dollar store. This activity works on 1:1 correspondence as those little fingers count each dot on the sides of the dice. After they figure out how many lima beans they need, let them count as they put one bean in each ice cube square.
Items Needed
Ice cube tray or muffin tin
Lima beans or rocks painted gold (you can even use gold coins or pom poms)
Dice
4. Handprint Shamrock
Any handprint activity will require more hands-on help from the parents. These aren’t necessarily the most engaging for kids, but they make really cute presents for the grandparents.
Instructions
This shamrock is pretty simple; just paint their hands and place them down in the shape of a four-leaf clover. You can make it more child-directed by asking them how many leaves they want on their clover. Just be prepared to make a 15-handprint clover, if so!
Items Needed
Green paint
Paper
Hands
5. Sorting Lucky Charms
This was the first time my kids tasted Lucky Charms and, let me tell you, they were not disappointed. Part of me wonders if they will now expect all cereal to have marshmallows. My three-year-old loved it and got smart on me by picking all the marshmallows out first, then dumping the cereal into the designated bowl. This activity did not take as long as I had hoped, but they loved the cereal-eating afterwards. My two-year-old had zero invested in sorting, so he took handfuls and put them in whichever bowl he wanted.
Instructions
Pour Lucky Charms into a bowl and give each child two extra bowls to separate the marshmallows and cereal. I put a few pieces in each bowl to get them started on the sorting.
Items Needed
Lucky Charms cereal
Small containers
6. Fingerprint Rainbow
Another parent-driven activity. I started off by being very controlling on the fingerprint placement, but then remembered it’s really not as much fun for them if I do that. So let them make their own version of a rainbow. I thought about drawing a line in each color for them to follow with their fingerprints to see if it helped to form an actual rainbow shape but ended up letting them do their own thing.
Instructions
Help (or let them do it solo) as those tiny hands make fingerprint arches for each color of the rainbow. You can draw a pot of gold for the rainbow to end in or even make clouds on each end. The beauty of art is that you make it what you want.
Items Needed
Paints
Paper
Fingers
7. Paper Shamrock Collage
This is another great “children take the wheel” activity. It takes some prep work on the parent’s part, but it’s super fun for the kids.
Instructions
Draw a large shamrock on a piece of paper. Cut or tear anything green into manageable-sized pieces (I aimed for 1–2 inches). The materials that I used: scrapbook paper, card stock, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, pom poms, and buttons. I’m a crafter, so I had most of this on hand, but a quick pop into Michael’s or Hobby Lobby should allow you to gather many a green item.
Just make sure it’s possible to glue the items you choose. If you have older kids, they can squeeze their glue or use a glue stick on their own. Little ones will need more help. Because I used heavier items like buttons and pom poms, we used liquid glue. I asked the kids where they wanted something and helped them squeeze the glue out. You can also go glue crazy and coat the shamrock in glue first. My kids tend to be on the disaster side of mess and trouble, so I kept the glue in check for this one.
Items Needed
Paper
Small pieces of green paper
8. Green Food Tasting
Make sure y’all video this one! You will get some excellent faces, especially if you add things your kids may not have eaten or won’t eat. Somehow my guys were more likely to try the foods they usually snub when we played this game.
Instructions
Fill each spot in the muffin tin with green foods. Make a chart ahead of time listing each food item. Have your kids mark a check or X if they’re able or use stickers if they aren’t. Give them a chance to taste each food and decide whether they like it or not.
Items Needed
Green foods: grapes, broccoli, Skittles, celery, peppers, kiwi, cucumber, avocado, apple, pear, limes, asparagus, peas, snap peas, dried snap peas, green beans, etc.
Muffin tin to sort foods
Paper (make a grid and let them mark if they like or don’t like the food).
9. Leprechaun Snack Mix
This was an incredibly fun project that my kids enjoyed for days! Note: I went with mint M&Ms because they were all green, and I wouldn’t have to sift through anything. It was a weird addition to the mix, and my boys did not love the “spicy M&Ms.”
Instructions
Choose the items you want in your mix. Make little bowls of each item and allow your kids to scoop, spoon, or use their hands to make their own snack mix.
Items Needed
Chex Mix
Mini marshmallows
Green M&Ms
Green Skittles
Raisins
1 big bowl & little bowls with items separated out
Scoopers (we ended up ditching the scoopers and just using our hands)
10. St. Patrick’s Day “Soup”
We are big fans of a sensory activity in this house!
Instructions
If you have a bigger tub/bucket, this is definitely the better choice here. The bigger the bucket, the lower the chance of major water spillage in my experience. Fill said bucket/tub with water. You can choose to make the soup ahead, and let the kids play with it, or you can allow them to make it with you and add the items they want. We went with the latter, so our soup was a tiny bit full and didn’t totally conform to the Irish theme.
Items Needed
Water
Green food dye
Gold coins (or anything you choose to add to it)
Ladles, spoons, things to scoop (add old toothbrushes if you have them and let the kids clean their findings)
Large tub or bin
As with any activity, game, or craft with kids, you need a bucket of patience, a little prep work, and maybe a glass of wine. We really love doing activities like these; I find that it gives my boys an outlet for creativity in a way that’s different from their toys. Sometimes these activities take a bit more work than I would like and last a significantly shorter amount of time than I hoped. But all in all, they are almost always well-received, and we have a great time.
Just make sure to keep your expectations low before starting any project with littles, and they may just surprise you!
{Read More: An Irish Mama’s Tips for St. Patrick’s Day Shenanigans}
This post was originally published on March 6, 2018.
