St. Patrick’s Day is a great little holiday full of my favourite colour – green! This holiday, originating in Ireland, can be brought to life in your classroom in a variety of engaging ways. In this blog post, I will share with you my favourite St. Patrick’s Day activities for upper primary students.

What is St. Patrick’s Day?

Saint Patrick’s Day is observed on the 17th of March each year and is celebrated inside and outside Ireland as a religious and/or cultural holiday.

In 1903, Saint Patrick’s Day became an official public holiday in Ireland. In Ireland, they hold a Saint Patrick’s Festival running over five days. Overall 2009’s five-day festival saw almost one million visitors. Festival activities included concerts, outdoor theatre performances, and fireworks.

Popular symbols of St. Patrick’s Day include the colour green (yay!), pots of gold, shamrocks, and leprechauns. Although often mistaken to be one, a four-leaf clover, is not actually a symbol of St. Patrick’s day.

I have sourced a diverse range of quality FREE St. Patrick’s Day Activities to help you to celebrate in style this March 17. Why not combine these activities and have a St. Patrick’s Day themed classroom for the day!

St. Patrick’s Day Binary Coding Unplugged

This free resource from Curiosity and the Hungry Mind is a great way to introduce students to the coding methods of Binary Code through a fun St. Patrick’s Day theme. What is binary code, you may ask? Binary code is the way that most computers and computerized devices ultimately send, receive, and store information, so teaching your children binary coding is like teaching them another language. How cool is that? Click here to get this freebie today.

Leprechaun Math Mystery

Thinking Challenges has put together a great free resource for middle school (intermediate aged) students. I think it would work well for upper primary students, too! Students use their multiplication skills to discover where the leprechaun is hiding. I love the idea of using multiplication facts in a creative and challenging context! Click here to get your free Leprechaun Math Mystery resource.

St. Patrick’s day science activity – walking rainbow

This free activity from Teaching With Jennifer Findley is such a fantastic idea. In her blog post, Jennifer explains one of her favourite science demonstrations that is perfect as a St. Patrick’s Day science activity. I am a visual learner, so I love that each of the six steps is shown with a photo – I wish all recipes and experiments were shown this way! Another great addition is “The Science Behind the Activity” section, where Jennifer explains more about capillary action. You can find the activity here.

St. Patrick’s Naming Nouns Activity

Joy in the Journey by Jessica Lawler has put together a fun parts of speech activity focusing on nouns. This St. Patrick’s themed activity challenges your students to stretch their brains creatively while practising the important skill of nouns. You could turn this into a fun class challenge where pairs compete to complete the task the quickest. Another variation could be to try to think of the most original nouns for each section of the table.

17 Saint Patrick’s Activities For Kids

Our friends at A Plus Teaching Resources have a wonderful blog post that highlights 17 St. Patrick’s Day activities. There will definitely be something here for everyone. You can also learn some great facts about this holiday, including the interesting tidbit that the colour of St. Patrick’s Day was originally blue. You learn something new every day!

Did you say FREEBIE?

Sign up to our free resource library to download our FREE reading comprehension reading passages and activities. Your students will learn about the history of St. Patrick’s Day while completing higher-order thinking follow up activities. This is our most popular freebie with over 23,000 downloads so far.

St. Patrick’s Day Reading Comprehension Activities

Take a deeper dive into St. Patrick’s Day with our St. Patrick’s Day reading comprehension pack. This St. Patrick’s Day activity includes two Year Five and Six (Grade 4 and Grade 5) texts. We’ve jam-packed it full of engaging and thought-provoking activities to grab your students’ attention AND hold it. The activities begin at the lower levels of Blooms Taxonomy (Remember, Understand, Apply) and move through to the higher levels (Analyze, Evaluate, Create).

If you are looking for something a little bit different this St. Patrick’s Day, try our St. Patrick’s Day Scavenger Hunt Puzzle. The completed puzzle posters will brighten your classroom walls and bulletin boards while your students learn about St. Patrick and the history, food and symbols of St. Patrick’s Day. Don’t forget those tricky little leprechauns!

This activity is great for individuals, pairs or as a small group activity. Engage your students’ artistic flair with the wide range of activities provided in this resource.

St. Patrick’s Day Digital Activities

Are you looking for Digital St Patrick’s Day Activities? You’ll LOVE our digital activities for Google Classroom. These dynamic, engaging, and interactive activities are a great way to explore St. Patrick’s Day.

This activity is a great way to introduce students to various skills they will need when using Google Slides! Click here to see more.

We have curated a Pinterest board with more St. Patrick’s Day activities. Click here to see more.