Match 17th is St. Patrick’s Day—an event celebrated with parades, shamrocks, and green, well, pretty much green everything. Get your kids into the spirit of the Emerald Isle with these fun St. Patrick’s Day games for kids.
St. Patrick’s Day Games for Kids at Home
St. Patrick’s Day games for kids who haven’t reached school age should be fun and simple. Here are three games you can play with one or more children.
Leprechaun Treasure Hunt
For this game, you need a plastic Leprechaun’s pot of gold, available at most craft stores. Fill the pot with goodies: a few chocolate coins, a coloring book and crayons, small toys from the local dollar store, and a surprising new book like I Wish You More.
Hide the treasure in the house. Using red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple paper to represent the colors of the rainbow, write clues written by the leprechaun leading to the treasure. The location of the next clue should be close to an item matching the next color of the rainbow. For example, in one house the clues might look like this:
- Red: To find me gold, riddle me this? What’s orange and near where you sit? (the Orange clue might be under an orange pillow on a chair).
- Orange: You’re pretty smart, let’s see how much. What’s yellow and close to where you eat lunch? (Hide the yellow clue might be next to some yellow flowers on the kitchen table).
- Yellow: You’re getting closer, but there’s much to do. What do you wear when it’s cold, and is colored bright blue? (A blue winter coat).
- Blue: So very close, I’ll stop you yet! It’s in the bathroom, close to what’s wet. (a blue toothbrush, bar of soap, or towel).
- Purple: Oh woe is me! You’ll find me gold. In the living room’s something purple and bold (the treasure pot is hidden behind a large purple plant pot.
Pit o’ Gold Goop
Kids love sensory activities, and this St. Patrick’s Day for kids lets them sink their hands in some gooey fun. One word of caution—this can cause quite a mess, so this gold hunt is best performed while wearing old clothes and smocks. A drop cloth (or even the bath) will help keep cleanup to a minimum.
You’ll need:
- Shaving cream
- 3-4 cups green food coloring
- Green glitter
- Plastic gold coins
- Clear dish
- Spoons
- Paper towels (for cleanup).
Fill the clear dish about three-quarters full of shaving cream. Stir in the food coloring and glitter, and then mix in the gold coins. Let kids dig in the shaving cream to find the coins. If they’re a little leery about using their hands, they can dig with the spoons.
Irish Cottage
St. Patrick’s games for kids don’t have to be complicated, as this game demonstrates. Get a big cardboard box and cut out windows and a door. Now let your kids loose on the “cottage” to decorate it with paint, markers, stickers, and St. Patrick’s Day decorations. If you’ve got extra cardboard, make a signpost so the kids can give the cottage an Irish-sounding name.
For extra fun, provide the kids with some Irish-themed dress up clothes, a plastic pot of gold, and some play coins. Now sit back and watch your little leprechauns make their own fun!
St. Patrick’s Day Games for Kids at School
Do you need some inspiration for St. Patrick’s Day games for kids in elementary school? These three games will keep them giggling and active.
Balance the Rainbow
Give each child a popsicle sticks and a bowl of fruit loops. Children hold the stick in their mouths and stack the cereal as high as they can. Time them for a minute, then see who has the highest stack.
Who’s the Leprechaun?
Send one child out of the room to be “it.” Now choose a child to be the leprechaun and put on some Celtic music. The leprechaun chooses a dance move and all the other children mimic her.
When the child who’s “it” comes back in, he must guess which child the leprechaun is. The leprechaun randomly changes the dance moves, and other kids must change to the new dance as soon as possible. Once the leprechaun is correctly identified, the child who was “it” gets to choose the next guesser.
Gold Coin Toss
Draw a large rainbow on a poster board and place the rainbow on the floor. Kids stand a few feet away from the rainbow and take turns tossing coins close to the rainbow’s end (you might want to draw a pot of gold at the rainbow’s end).
If a child’s coin gets close to the rainbow’s end, other children can try to throw their coins so they knock the close coin further away—rather like curling. After everyone has a turn, the child who threw closest is the winner.
Resources
http://simpleplayideas.com/st-patricks-day-activity-coin-dig
http://www.notsowimpyteacher.com/2016/03/st-patricks-day-minute-to-win-it.html
https://www.thespruce.com/st-patricks-day-party-games-2104721
