St. Patrick’s day is almost here! Try out some of these fun learning activities with your preschooler.
Pom Pom Rainbow
Pom pom rainbows are an easy, colorful, and fun activity for little learners. We made our craft after reading the book What Makes a Rainbow. The read aloud is optional, but my daughter really likes this book as it has string inside and after each page is turned, a new string is added to the rainbow to represent the bands of the rainbow.
When we finished the read aloud, we headed over to the table to work on our craft. You will need the following materials:
- Assorted pom poms or pieces of colored paper (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)
- White paper with a rainbow printed or drawn (I drew our rainbow)
- Glue
You can work on color recognition with your child by having them sort the pom poms into piles of each color. I placed glue on each rainbow arch so my daughter could easily place the pom poms onto the glue. I guided her and helped her to put the pom poms in the right rainbow archs. She had a lot of fun with this and it is actually a very good fine motor activity. We were running a little low on some colors, but I still think it turned out so pretty! You could also use pieces of colored paper in each color of the rainbow if you did not have pom poms.
Shapes Shamrock
Making a shape shamrock is a great way to practice shape recognization and also helps little fingers use fine motor skills.
You will need the following materials:
- 12 x 12 piece of white card stock to make shamrock
- Green construction paper or card stock to make shapes
- Glue
- Paintbrush
I cut a shamrock out of card stock using my Cricut machine, but you could easily draw the shamrock and cut it out yourself! I then cut shapes out of green construction paper (I did not use my Cricut machine for this as you can see some of my shapes are a little lopsided).
I put glue on the shamrock and used a paintbrush to make sure it was covering the whole shamrock surface. I asked my daughter to find certain shapes and put them on her shamrock. After she did this a few time I went ahead and let her do it on her own and put as many of each shape as she wanted onto the paper.
Lucky Charms Sensory Bin
Sensory bins are a really big hit with toddlers. For this St. Patrick’s themed sensory bin you will need:
- Lucky Charms
- Chocolate Coins
- Fine Motor Tools
- Cups or Small Bowls
I poured an entire bag of Lucky Charms into our sensory bin and added in some gold chocolate coins. I gave my daughter a variety of cups and tools to scoop, pour, and pick up the cereal and coins. She had a BLAST with this.
Learning Opportunities
Counting: Find all of the gold coins and count them.
Sorting: Find all of the different marshmellows and sort them by category or colors.
Your child may want to just explore and have fun! Don’f forget, you also can EAT the Lucky Charms cereal. I forgot how tasty Lucky Charms are! I haven’t had Lucky Charms in years and it was a yummy St. Patrick’s Day treat for not only my daughter, but me too!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
