Learning Activities Using Shamrocks

A while back I shared a roundup of shamrock themed math activities, and I thought it was time to share some more fun learning activities that you can do with shamrocks because they’re such a fun shape.

Make a simple lacing card with this template from Carrots are Orange to give kids a little practice with their fine motor skills. (You can find more shamrock templates for this or other crafts at The Artisan Life, or search online for more.)

If you happen to have some green craft foam or felt you can make this easy shape puzzle game from Little Family Fun. You could even make it a sort of scavenger hunt, hiding the pieces around the room and then have kids match them up. Make this a language arts activity by writing an upper case letter on one half and the corresponding lower case letter on the other. Or you can pair up sight words, prefixes and suffixes, or numerals with the word for the number, to name a few.

Speaking of number matching, there’s a printable from Team Cartwright that takes it a step further, with shamrocks you can cut apart and each petal shows the number presented in a different way so kids have to find them, match them up and put them back together. (There’s also a color by number printable here.)

Play with patterns and simple shapes with these building block shamrocks from JDaniel4’s Mom. You can use small building blocks and construction paper to reinforce that these things are the same shapes, or just use one or the other, whatever you have on hand that’s easy for you.

Do a little shamrock counting and coloring with these super cute printables from Crystal & Comp. Kids can color the rainbow and color and count the shamrocks, then write the numbers and the word for the number with the help of a tracing section at the bottom (or cut that part off and have older kids write the words and numerals on their own).

And get kids moving by hiding shamrocks all over the room/house and playing the shamrock math race game from Coffee Cups and Crayons. Super easy to set up and kids can play it endlessly!

St Patrick’s Day Activity books on Amazon

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Fun Shamrock Craft Projects

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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