Top of the mornin’ to ya! There’s nothing like a green St. Patty’s Day to get everyone in the spirit of the day of the leprechaun! This St. Patrick’s Day, make the day extra-special and fun for your kids with these fun crafts and great activities!
Looking for the gold!
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The night or day a few days before, be sure that ya make some of those Leprechaun Foot Prints and giant shamrocks for ye children!
To make leprechaun feet, take a pair of your child’s old shoes and trace them on to pieces of plain white paper or to really make them “authentic”, use green construction paper!! Make a lot of them because they will take your children on a hunt for the rainbow and the pot of gold when they wake up!
Cut out some huge shamrocks that you can place between the footprints, making a St. Patrick’s Day treasure path of sorts.
Early on the morning of St. Patrick’s Day, place the feet from their bedrooms to where you have hidden the pots of gold. If you want to make it more fun, have the feet lead them to places where they only find a note.
Rainbows with pots of gold
If you don’t have time, just use a regular cereal bowl and tape a little paper handle to it- be sure to make the handle in different colors of construction paper making a rainbow!
If you have even more time, go to a local crafts store and look for some small plastic pots.
To make the treasure at the end of the rainbow even more special, fill the bowls or pots with chocolate foil covered candy coins or butterscotch discs. If you don’t have coins or prefer your children not eat chocolate first thing in the morning and they are old enough to know they shouldn’t eat them put in pennies or other coins!
Hanging rainbows
Rainbows are a good addition to your treasure hunt! You can make them two different ways.
Use a paper plate. Color one side as a rainbow. Cut out and hang from ceiling or light.
Use another paper plate. Cut out streamers of different colors and attach to the paper place with the “rainbow” hanging downward. Punch a hole it top and hang from appropriate place near leprechaun pot.
Table decorations sure to please any leprechaun!
Using small paper cups, make up side down St. Patrick’s Day hats! Make them similar to the way you made the wearable hats, except you can glue the stovetop top to a circle you cut out for the bottom.
Or if you prefer, cut out the inside and fill with candies or treats!
Draw shamrocks and rainbows on white paper plates with crayons or non-toxic markers.
Buy green napkins or paper towels that have a green print on them.
Festive St. Patrick’s meals
For breakfast and for every meal of the day if possible, make sure that every menu includes mainly green stuff or stuff that has a touch of green! Buy a shamrock cookie cutter that you can use for each meal, cutting bread into shamrocks or even cutting fruit into shamrock shapes!
Suggestions? For breakfast, buy the cereal that includes shamrocks! Put green food color in their milk! Have kiwi fruit, green grapes, green apples or green melon instead of the usual bananas!
For Lunch see if you can find bread, like challah buns that is dyed green at the grocery store! Make their sandwich from this special bread and be sure to cut it into a shamrock shape! Put green food color into peanut butter! Serve with green pickles and green celery sticks and green cottage cheese! For dessert, how about some and green jello and green whipped cream or a green milkshake or some krispy treats, cut into shamrocks iced them with green icing!
Dinnertime can be a bit more challenging, especially if you are serving corned beef and cabbage- while the cabbage is green, you don’t want to dye the corned beef! But you can the mashed potatoes! Green cake, green tinted ice cream (or green mint ice cream), pistachio pudding or green jello are also dessert hits for St. Patrick’s Day!
Festive wear
One of the most fun things to wear on St. Patrick’s Day is a BIG [tag-tec]leprechaun[/tag-tec] hat! If you have time, finish the round container of half-gallon you now have. Clean it out and cut the bottom off. Place it on green construction paper and trace it for a pattern to cover the sides of the container. Make a big circle to make the brim of the hat. Be sure to cut the inside out a wee bit smaller than the “hat” so you can push the brim onto the hat. Make a “buckle” with gold construction paper.
If you don’t have any ice cream containers, just make the hats from construction paper. Cut a huge rectangle to make your ‘stovetop” leprechaun hat. Glue or staple together to make the top hat. Cut a circle to make the brim, being sure to cut out the middle which you will push onto your or your child’s head. Add a gold buckle made from construction paper, and you have a hat!
Bow tie or tie- From a paper plate, cut out a bow tie shape or with construction paper, cut out a long tie. Let your child color the tie green and add decorations such as buttons or glitter. Punch holes in the plate and attach pieces of string to attach around their neck. (Be sure to NOT do this with very young children who could become tangled in the string!)
St. Pattys Day is one of our favorite family Holidays! All of us at More4kids wish you and your family a happy Saint Patricks Day.
Wow what fantastic ideas! I know my kids would go for the green mashed potatoes!
I really like the rainbow pot of gold one. I think I’ll give it a try. Thanks!
Here from the Carnival of Family Life.
Sounds like your kids will be having a grand St. Paddy’s Day! Thanks for sharing all of that. visiting from the Carnival of Family Life.