St. Patrick’s Day Themed Fine Motor, STEM, Literacy and Math Centers for Kindergarten

St. Patrick’s Day is the perfect opportunity to add a little extra magic to your Kindergarten classroom! With playful themes like leprechauns, rainbows, and pots of gold, it’s easy to integrate fun, hands-on math and literacy activities that engage young learners☘️

Keep scrolling to see my favourite St. Patrick’s Day centers for Kindergarten that not only bring festive cheer to the classroom but also promote the development of foundation literacy and numeracy skills like counting, number recognition, letter sounds and more!

1. St. Patrick’s Day STEM:

I love this centre because it incorporates fine motor skills, STEM and counting! The last class I set this up for loved hands-on centres like this and when they saw me setting this up on Friday afternoon (during a prep) they wanted to play with it right away and wouldn’t stop asking about it!

And as expected it was a huuuuge hit. They loved seeing who could make the strongest rainbow that could hold up the most coins and it became a bit of a competition amongst my more competitive SKs😆

I originally got this idea from @fdk_learnandplay, so thanks to Lia for this idea!

Sources for items used at this centre:

• Clover tray, gold coins, black pots: Party City
• Chalkboard: Michaels
• Wire book stand: Dollarama

2. St. Patrick’s Day Water Table

This is clearly nothing revolutionary, but my kiddos always love a good water table, so here is what I set up for the week before March Break last time I was in the classroom! I added some water, green food colouring, some black pots, shamrock confetti, gold coins, gold pony beads and a sprinkle of gold glitter✨

I kind of just threw this bin together but it ended up being a big hit! The kids enjoyed scooping water with the pots, counting the coins, seeing how many coins they can put in a pot before it sank etc! I hope your students love it too if you give this one a try💚

3. Leprechaun Barber Shop

My kiddos LOVED the Frankenstein hair cuts and the Santa beard trim activities, so I knew I had to include this leprechaun version in the St. Patrick’s Day centres pack! It is such a fun way to work on scissors skills! I mean what kid doesn’t like giving things hair cuts and beard trims? There are 3 types of lines included (straight, zig zag and wavy) plus one with no lines so the students can be as creative as they want with their beard design! The one with no lines is almost always the favourite💚

*All of the centres shown in this pack can be found in my “Kindergarten St. Patrick’s Day Centres: Literacy, Math, Fine Motor and More!“

4. Make a Rainbow: Vinegar + Baking Soda Pictures

We did this one the first week of March a few years ago and the kids LOVED it. All we did was put some baking soda on a cookie sheet and filled 6 plastic shot glasses with vinegar and food colouring. We set it out with eye droppers and an invitation to make a rainbow, but really they could make any picture they wanted. This uses a lot of baking soda, so I sent out a message on Remind to our parents after the first day and we were donated 4 boxes! So thankful for our amazing and supportive parents!

The eye droppers are from Amazon. You can find them here: https://amzn.to/32YTShw

5. Coin Hunt!

This is a simple but engaging sensory bin that is so easy to differentiate! The cards come in uppercase, lowercase and beginning sound images (expect for x, but it says right on the card “last letter of” for the x card😉) and the recording sheets come in uppercase tracing, lowercase tracing and blank (so students can write the letters themselves if they want to! I have a little guy who weirdly doesn’t like to trace and likes to write letters on his own so I thought I would include this option💚)

The cards in the picture above were printed at 100%. I found this a bit big for the sensory bin I was using so for the image below I printed the cards at 50% and they were perfect! I kept them the original size in the pdf though since you can always set to print at a smaller scale and the larger size cards would be better if you wanted to do this activity “write the room” style and post the cards around the room for the students to find!

6. St. Patrick’s Day Words Chart + Mini Book

My students love these word charts and mini books so I make them for every holiday/season! I simply put the word charts out with blank paper or booklets and have students draw and write a sentence or write a story using some of the words!

The booklet comes in 3 levels so it’s easy to differentiate!

7. St. Patrick’s Day Words: Dab & Read

A simple, no-prep way to work on letter formation (without a pencil!) Students use the bingo dabbers (small stamps or dot stickers work too!), start at the image and then dab the dots to form the letter. My students love bingo dabbers so this one is a nice low prep activity that they always enjoy🤍

8. Build and Trace: St. Patrick’s Day Words

Snap cubes are always popular with students and a great way to work on developing the finger muscles needed for holding and writing with a pencil! Simply set out these mats with snap cubes and have students build the images and trace the word at the bottom with a dry erase marker for extra printing practice!

9. Trace and Build: Gold Coins

Play dough/loose parts centres are always popular with my students so I try to include it whenever I can! I set these cards out with yellow play dough and any other small yellow loose parts I have (gold pony beads work really well here!). The pony beads are especially great because their small size forces students to work on their pincer grip😉

10. Water Bottle Cap Shamrock Art

For this activity, students were invited to create shamrocks with the top of a plastic bottle (the cap) by dipping it into green paint.  Then I showed how to add the stems with green paint with a paint brush.  Finally they were encouraged to record the number of shamrocks they painted using the recording sheet!

My last group of kiddos loved to paint and as expected, it was a popular activity!  If you want to grab the recording sheet you see in the image above, you can click here or on the image below to grab it for FREE:

11. Rainbow Shapes: Find & Trace

I set these cards out in a sensory bin filled with cotton balls (I love using cotton balls as sensory bin filler in the spring months because they are cheap and they look like clouds☁️) but you could also do this one “write the room” style and post them around the room for the kids to find! Then students can pick/find a card, find the matching shape on their recording sheet and trace it. There is also a blank recording sheet for your students who can draw shapes on their own and need a challenge😉

12. St. Patrick’s Day Cookies: Measure & Record

Measure & Record is another centre that is always popular and it works on so many skills at once (non-standard measurement, fine motor, 1:1 correspondence, number formation). It’s a nice low prep centre too, simply cut out the cards and set them out with snap cubes and the recording sheet! If you want to switch up the manipulative, measuring them with gold pony beads would be fun💛

Again all of the printables shown in this pack that weren’t freebies are in my “Kindergarten St. Patrick’s Day Centres: Literacy, Math, Fine Motor & More!” pack on TPT. Click here or on the image below if you want to grab it to use in your classroom🌈

Still looking for more FREE ideas? You can download the free “End of the Rainbow Find & Trace” printable here: https://apinchofkinder.com/2016/03/8-st-patricks-day-activities-for/

I hope you found an idea to try that you think your students will love!