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I love March! When March 1st hits, I get excited for Dr. Seuss’ birthday, St. Patrick’s Day and Spring. I get so excited for spring that I enjoy switching out our books to include all our favorites about bugs, butterflies, flowers, planting gardens and the rainy spring weather. You can check out all of the books in my post titled 32 Books About Spring for Toddlers and Preschoolers 😊
Since I started teaching my preschooler at home, I’ve really enjoyed incorporating the different seasons and holidays into our learning time. My daughter enjoys it, too! I think sprinkling in the seasons and holidays is fun and engaging for my young learners. That is why I created the St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack. It is 33 pages of hands-on learning and St. Patrick’s Day fun for my preschooler.
Here are all the skills practiced in this learning resource:
- Vocabulary
- Writing Lowercase Letters
- Uppercase Letter Shape for G, L, R
- Beginning Sounds
- Matching Uppercase and Lowercase Letters
- Recognizing Numbers 1-18
- Counting to 10
- Using a Ten Frame
- Comparing Numbers
- Subitizing
- Patterns
- Rhyming Words
- Picture Matching Game
- Picture Puzzles
- Color Sorting
- Shapes – Triangle, Circle, Square, Rectangle, Pentagon, Hexagon
- Taking Turns
- Following Multi-Step Directions
- Fine Motor
- Hand-Eye Coordination
Our preschool learning time always begins with books. Books build background knowledge and bring focus to our learning time. The characters, events and details of each story bring about conversation with my toddler and preschooler.
I brought out our favorite St. Patrick’s Day books. Check your local library for seasonal/holiday books! That’s a great place to start and I always end up purchasing the favorites so we can read them from year to year!
Build Vocabulary & Play with Words
We begin by building vocabulary. There are 16 St. Patrick’s Day words in this seasonal learning resource. Each word includes a picture. These word cards are wonderful for practicing letter recognition, letter shape and spelling.
My preschooler loves to trace. I laminated the vocabulary words so she could use a dry erase marker for tracing. I plan to reuse these word cards with my son when he is ready to start writing letters.
We talked about and analyzed each word. My daughter spelled the word by naming each letter from left to right. This builds letter naming fluency and works on reading from left to right. We say the word, count the number of letters and sometimes clap the syllables. Then my daughter traces each letter with a dry erase marker. This practices letter formation.
Building each word adds another level of play with letters. Choose 3-4 words (or more depending on your child’s level) to focus on at a time. Hide magnet letters or letter tiles in a bin of rice. Your child searches for the hidden letters and builds each word as he/she finds the letters. When all the letters in each word are covered with a letter tile or magnet letter, he/she will know all of the hidden letters were found.
Move into writing each word onto a piece of paper after building each one. Then engage in “Rainbow Writing”. Trace each letter in one color. Trace each letter in a second color. Repeat this as long as your child is interested.
Use these St. Patrick’s Day word cards to focus on beginning sounds and ending sounds. Put a bunch of letters in a bag and have your child pick one out. Search for it in the words. Have your child sort the words by number of letters, number of syllables or specific letters within the word (ex: words with an a/words without an a). Just have fun playing with the words!
Uppercase & Lowercase Letter Practice
The next group of activities in the St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack introduce more hands-on learning specific words from the word cards. Your child will match uppercase and lowercase letters with the letters from the word SHAMROCK.
They will cut out and glue gold coins onto the uppercase G, cut out and glue leprechauns on the uppercase L and cut out and glue rainbows on the uppercase R.
Your little learner practices his/her cutting skills. Gluing the pictures onto the letter helps them learn the letter shape. The pictures give a visual connection to remember the letter and sound it makes.
Before gluing the pictures onto the letters, place each letter page into a plastic sheet protector and use as a Play Doh building mat. Have your child roll out long snakes of Play Doh. Build each letter shape with the Play Doh snakes. This creates a tactile learning experience for your child. Rolling and shaping Play Doh is also great for strengthening the hands for writing.
Rainbow Picture Puzzle & Matching Activities
Rainbows are fun to learn and talk about so I had to include them in the St. Patrick’s Day activities. My daughter loves puzzles and the rainbow picture puzzle is a great cutting practice. She strengthens her visual discrimination as she pieces the puzzle back together. She notices specific details of the picture. Including the letters at the bottom acts as a self-check. If the word is spelled out, the puzzle is put together correctly. Glue the finished puzzle onto a favorite color of construction paper.
Cut out and match the uppercase and lowercase letters with the letters from the word RAINBOW. Each letter pair forms a rainbow. Glue the matches onto a favorite color of construction paper.
The Rainbow Rhyming Word Match helps your child listen for similar sounds in words. Playing with rhyming words is important for building your child’s phonological awareness, which is the ability to notice and work with the sounds in language. Matching words together that rhyme teaches your child the sound of language and helps them learn word families like cat, bat, hat, sat, mat.
Sorting activities are so great for young learners because it teaches them to classify things. It focuses their attention on a specific detail of each item. They learn to notice how things are alike and different. You can honestly sort ANYTHING in your house….toys, stuffed animals, cars, kitchen items, clothing, etc.
For the St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activities Pack, I included a Beginning Sound Picture Sort that focuses on G, L, and R. The Sorting Mat gives them a defined space to organize the pictures as they sort them by beginning sound. Feel free to gather several small toys or objects from around your house into a basket/bin that start with G, L and R. Engage your child in sorting the items by beginning sound onto the Sorting Mat.
Build Number Sense & Play with Numbers
The next group of activities in the St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack focus on number recognition, counting, representing ten, comparing numbers, subitizing, and patterns.
Subitizing
Subitizing is the ability to recognize a group of small objects without counting. When we roll a dice, we recognize the number we roll without counting the dots. This is a foundational skill in your child’s development of number sense, which is why I’ve included two activities that practice this skill.
First, your child matches a set of gold coins to a numbered pot. If your child hasn’t mastered the skill of subitizing, it’s okay if he/she counts each gold coin. This is just as important, too! Pointing to each coin as he/she counts develops understanding of one-one correspondence. This means one number equals one coin.
Another way to practice subitizing is having your child match a number to an amount represented on a Ten Frame. That’s why I created the Shamrock Counting Ten Frames. You can cut the Ten Frames out and hide the numbered shamrocks in a bin of dyed green rice or green split peas. Then have your child search and find the numbered shamrocks, matching each one to a Ten Frame.
Using a Ten Frame
Representing ten is another foundational skill in number sense. When your child first starts counting, using a Ten Frame helps them understand one-one correspondence. He/she needs to put one object in each square. The more and more you use a Ten Frame, your child will start to understand that each row equals 5 and 5 plus 5 more equals 10. As your child’s number sense grows and you move into representing ten with different combinations, the Ten Frame is a wonderful visual tool for children. That’s why I’ve included one in the St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activities Pack. Counting leprechauns and gold coins makes the activity engaging for young children!
A set of pots are labeled with the numbers 1-10. After printing and cutting these apart, shuffle them up. First, have your child put the numbers back in order from 1-10. Next, you can choose a different starting number and practice building a counting sequence. Counting on using a number line is a problem-solving strategy taught in the primary grades. Another way to play with the numbered pots is to take a few of them away. Then, have your child identify the numbers that are missing.
Shuffle the pots up and turn them facedown. Have your child choose a pot and represent that number on the Counting Ten Frame with either the coins or the leprechauns. Repeat this for more numbers or as long as your child is interested.
Shuffle the numbered pots up again. Have your child choose a pot and represent that number on the Counting Ten Frame with the gold coins. Talk about the number. How many less than 5? How many more than 5?
Then have your child fill the rest of the Ten Frame with leprechauns. Talk about the leprechauns. How many leprechauns did we need to make ten? How many gold coins do we have? How many leprechauns do we have? Talk about how this combination of gold coins and leprechauns makes a total of 10. Repeat this activity for more numbers or as long as your child is interested.
Talking about numbers is so important because it helps young children develop a strong number sense. That’s why I’ve included a Comparing Numbers chart. This is one of my go-to ways to play with and talk about numbers.
Using the numbered pots, have your child choose a pot for each side of the Comparing Numbers chart. Place it on top of each side. Then, have your child count out gold coins on one side and leprechauns on the other. If they want to only use one object, that’s perfectly fine, too! Now talk about the numbers! Which number is bigger? Which number is smaller? Which side has more? Now line up the two sides, making pairs and talk about how many more are on one side.
Shamrock Roll & Cover
Playing games is a fun way to engage young learners in building math skills! Rolling dice is always a hit, too. That’s why I’ve included a Roll & Cover activity, a Shamrock Number Roll & Cover activity perfect for St. Patrick’s Day.
There are three levels of the game. For the first one your child rolls one dice and the shamrocks are labeled with numbers 1-6. For the second one, your child rolls two dice and the shamrocks are labeled with numbers 2-12. For the third one, your child rolls three dice and the shamrocks are labeled with numbers 4-18. Your child can cover the shamrocks with anything! St. Patrick’s Day mini erasers would be fun to use, but you can use buttons, small blocks or even pennies. If you plan to only use this game one time, feel free to use bingo markers to stamp the number as it is rolled. The game is over when the board is completely covered. Print more than one copy of each sheet depending on the number of children playing the game.
St. Patrick’s Day Patterns
Engage your preschooler in some fun with patterns. Playing with patterns helps your child build his/her predicting skills as they begin to understand what comes next. Patterns provide a sense of order and help our children develop critical thinking skills and logic.
Your child will have fun finishing the patterns created from shamrocks, rainbows, pots of gold, leprechaun hats, the Irish flag and gold coins. Then your child can use the St. Patrick’s Day pattern pieces to build his/her own patterns.
St. Patrick’s Day Matching Game, Color Sorting & Building Shapes with Play Doh
My St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack wouldn’t be complete without a fun matching game. Shuffle the cards, lay them all out facedown, and then take turns finding matches. This matching game improves your child’s language, concentration and memory.
A Shamrock Color Sorting Mat and Shamrock Play Doh Shape Building Mat are the final two activities of the St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack. We love to use Fruit Loops for color sorting. This is a fun activity to do right before snacktime.
Give your child a bowl of Fruit Loops and have them sort by color. Then count the amount on each color. Talk about which color has the most, the least and if there are any with the same amount. Now your child can eat the cereal for a fun snack! You can use this mat to sort anything: beads, buttons, small blocks, small pieces of colored paper, magnet letters, puzzle pieces or Pom Poms.
As I mentioned before, playing with Play Doh is a great way to build your child’s hand strength for writing. We love to play with Play Doh in our house. It is one of those things that can be used in so many ways, especially when it comes to learning.
I decided to focus on shapes for this activity pack. Your child will take Play Doh, flatten it and cut it so that it fills each shape on the Shamrock. Feel free to print and cut apart the shamrock shapes or leave them as is on one sheet. I laminated ours so it can be reused, but feel free to put inside a plastic sheet protector, too! Once your child builds the shapes, give them some buttons (eyes) and pipe cleaners cut in thirds (mouths) to put a face on each shape. The pipe cleaners can be shaped into many different expressions.
I hope this blog post provides you with lots of ways to play with numbers, letters, words and language for your early learner. The St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack comes with 33 pages of hands-on learning for your preschooler, Kindergartner or first grader. This activity pack makes learning lots of fun during the month of March. Just click on the image below to follow the link to my Teachers Pay Teachers store to grab your St. Patrick’s Day Early Learning Activity Pack today!
