Our family loves to break out the rainbows and pots of gold for all of the St. Patrick’s Day activities and crafts. There’s always something exciting about sneaky leprechauns getting into lots of mischief that makes my kids go crazy about St. Patrick’s Day activities. They also LOVE any activity with gold coins or trying to hunt for gold, so this type of themed play is right up their alley. The thrill of finding treasures and pots of gold is just too exciting for them not to partake in all the fun St. Patrick’s Day activities. So I went ahead and compiled a list of some of our family’s favorite St. Patrick Day activities and crafts. I hope you find some inspiration for your St. Patrick’s Day play time!
Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I may receive a small commission for any purchases made.
Search for Gold Sensory Bin
Who doesn’t love a good themed sensory bin? We do and this bin is perfect for St. Patrick’s Day! Just hide gold coins throughout your rice sensory bin, set out pots of gold to collect the coins in, and provide tongs to add in some more fine motor practice. Then have fun searching throughout the rice to find all of the coins!
If you’ve never tried a rice sensory bin before, you should give it a try. My family has been using rice sensory bins since my oldest was a toddler which was 7 years ago. And guess what!? We have used the same exactly bin of rice all of those 7 years. I originally just bought a shallow storage bin, poured the rice in, and added whatever play items I wanted to. Then when we aren’t using it, I just put the lid back on so it is air tight and the rice has stayed in good shape so that it can keep being reused for sensory play. If you are interested, I have linked the shallow storage bins and rice we used for this bin below. I’ve also linked the miniature pots of gold and coins that we used in this sensory bin and for all of our other St. Patrick’s Day activities.
St. Patrick’s Day Sensory Bin Supplies
Leprechaun Handprint
Look how cute this little leprechaun handprint craft is! Just paint the fingers orange and the palm a skin color. Press the handprint onto a piece of paper and paint on a little face. Then cut out and glue on a little green top hat. Then you have a cute little leprechaun craft that seconds as a handprint keepsake!
Leprechaun Hide and Seek
Isn’t it great when you can do a craft and use your final creations for a day long activity?! This activity is the best for that. We started out by making these adorable paper leprechaun hand prints. You could also do the painted leprechaun handprints that’s explained in the previous craft. Then we made some leprechaun lookers (aka binoculars 😉). These leprechaun lookers were simply made by glueing together two empty toilet paper rolls. The toilet paper rolls were then wrapped in construction paper and decorated with all things associated with St. Patrick’s Day (ie rainbows, shamrocks, gold, etc). I then hid the leprechaun handprints around the house and the kids had to use their leprechaun lookers to search and find the leprechauns. Expect your kids to want to continue hiding and seeking the leprechauns all day!
How to Make a Leprechaun Trap
This one is an absolute favorite of my kids. They always request to make a leprechaun trap every St. Patrick’s Day.
For this activity, we just collected a bunch of recyclable material around the house – a cardboard box (we used an empty frozen chicken sticks box haha), empty toilet paper roll, popsicle sticks, construction paper scraps, and left over coins and gems from a birthday party.
To make our leprechaun trap we:
1) Glued green construction paper around the box. You could also paint it if you prefer that instead.
2) Then we cut a circular hole in the back of the box large enough to fit the toilet paper roll. This is going to be the leprechaun’s tube slide.
3) We then used popsicle sticks to make the ladder to climb up to the slide. We broke the popsicle sticks in half for the steps and used a full popsicle stick for the sides
4) We hot glued the sticks together to create the ladder and then hot glued it to the toilet paper roll.
5) Then we used some leftover coins and gems from an old birthday party to glue all over the box to decorate it. You can use whatever you have on hand that you think might attract a leprechaun. Get creative with this part! You can even use the pots of gold and coins from the sensory bin above. Here are some other great ideas linked below:
- Foam stickers – including shamrocks, coins, lucky horseshoes
- Gems
- Glitter
- Rainbow craft supplies
- Pom pom balls
6) Then set the trap by the front door and leave it overnight to see if a leprechaun is drawn to your decorated creation.
In the morning, your kids might be excited to find some chocolate coins left behind from those rascally leprechauns.
Here are some more pictures of our leprechaun trap creations!
If you want to make it even more fun, on St. Patrick’s Day morning leave a note behind from the leprechaun. The note from our leprechaun read something like this – “Nice try! Your traps were able to catch me, but I was still able to escape. Some chocolate coins spilled out of my pot of gold when I escaped though. I hope you enjoy them! Better luck next time. P. S. – Don’t forget to wear green today.” The leprechaun even grabbed the leprechaun handprint craft that we made and stuck it with the note. The kids squealed with excitement as they found the chocolate coins left behind in their traps.
Sight Word Coin Hunt
This Sight Word Coin Hunt is a great activity to practice sight words (or letters). This is also a family favorite! Check out our original post for this one by clicking the link below.
Stamp the Leprechaun Beard
These sneaky little leprechauns needed help styling their beards in time for St. Patrick’s Day! This craft was so cute and simple to set up.
To set up:
- Draw some bare leprechaun faces
- Set out some washable orange paint
- Find a couple unique items to experiment stamping with. We used an old Valentines Day rose, a cotton ball, a qtip, and a toilet paper roll to stamp interesting beard designs!
Fingerprint Shamrocks
Here’s another super simple St. Patrick’s Day craft – Fingerprint Shamrocks! This one was so easy and all you need for this craft is:
- Paper
- Green washable paint
- Paint brush
- Sharpie (optional)
For this craft, all we did was dip our finger in green paint and pressed it four times to make the shamrock leaves. Then, we painted a little stem and let the paint dry. Once dry, I added a little black outline too but this is optional.
These little fingerprint shamrocks turned out so cute and were such a sweet little keepsake. This was also a fun little sensory activity for my 2 year old. She loved squishing the paint around in her fingers and had a blast with all of the sensory play!
Stamp the Shamrocks
This toilet paper roll shamrock craft is a favorite one of mine for St. Patrick’s Day. I love any craft that is simple and requires very little supplies. All you need is:
- Paper
- Green washable paint
- An empty toilet paper roll
- Paint brush
To set up this craft, all I did was just crease an empty toilet paper roll to make a tear drop shape or a heart shape. Then, we dipped the toilet paper roll in green paint and stamped 4 times with the creased point touching in the center of the shamrock. We then painted a stem to complete this cute shamrock craft!
Handprint Rainbow Craft
Here’s another super simple craft that’s perfect for St. Patrick’s day! Just choose 5 different colors and paint each of your child’s fingers with a different color using a paintbrush. Then press the handprint and paint a rainbow stripe coming from each finger leading to a pot of gold. So simple and fun and leaves you with a keepsake of your child’s precious hand! The washable paint set linked here is perfect for this craft!
Shamrock Chalk Art
Check out this easy setup shamrock craft! Just cut out a shamrock, lightly tape in onto a black sheet of paper, and then color overtop of the cut out with green chalk in an outward motion. Then remove the shamrock and you’re left with a cool shamrock chalk art print. View out Instagram tutorial below to see our final artwork!
St. Patrick’s Day Scavenger Hunt
If you are going to do any of our St. Patrick’s Day activities, you need to do this one! Just download and print this FREE printable St. Patrick’s Day scavenger hunt, set it up, and watch as your kid dash around the house in search of the sneaky leprechaun and his pot of gold. Get your free printable scavenger hunt by clicking our original post that is linked below.
We hope you enjoy these activities as much as us!!
