St. Patrick’s Day! Another opportunity for some fun themed activities to implement with the children in your life. Whether it be therapy sessions or your own children, we hope to inspire some St. Patrick’s Day fun!
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Hi, Chelsea here. I have been a pediatric speech-language pathologist (fancy name for a speech therapist) since 2015. I am here to share a more in-depth look at our St. Patrick’s Day Activity Pack. Grab the downloadable version from our Resource Library. Check it out for a low prep day (or week) of green-filled fun!
The Activities
I love themed activities! When my week for therapy (and at home with my preschool and toddler aged children) has a theme, I look forward to the week a little more. But, just like anything else, I can often forget (or procrastinate) to plan and prep activities.
I have learned a few tricks along the way, and one of them is to keep the activities simple and low prep. What I mean by low prep is less than 10 minutes… less than 5 is even better. I rotate very similar activities across different holidays. That means, I am changing the colors and a few of the additional items within the activity to match the specific holiday, but it is not a new activity altogether.
The activities included in our free downloadable St. Patrick’s Day Activity pack are:
- Squish Bags
- Craft
- Sensory Bin
- Printable Game
I will include a little overview of each below!
Squish Bags
Just like how it sounds … it is a squishy substance inside a bag! I laughed when I was taking the pictures because there was nothing glamorous about them. No matter the angle or whatever I tried to make it look more “Pinterest worthy”, it just looked like a bag of slime. Because it is.
But, just because it is unglamorous, does not mean it lacks in fun!
I start with a quart sized bag, add some clear hair gel and some green paint, toss in a few jewels & coins, and tape it shut.
These work great for:
- Letter drawing
- Number drawing
- Shape drawing
- Isolating finger movements to manipulate the items inside
- Sensory regulation or fidget
The texture in the bag makes for a sensory experience, without the mess. This would be especially good for kids who need to expand their sensory play, but who are very averse to stickiness or sliminess on their hands.
Squish Bag Supply List:
St. Patrick’s Day Craft
While I love the idea of all things green for St. Patrick’s Day, I also try to incorporate some sort of rainbow into the mix. This rainbow craft is simple but targets a lot of different concepts for children.
I start with a plain white piece of paper and all of the rainbow colors of paper (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple), some white craft poms, and some glue.
Depending on the age and skill level of your child, you may encourage them to cut the curved rainbow pieces of paper. Starting with a large piece for red and slowly decreasing the size with each color. If needed, you draw lines for them to cut along. While it is hard, try to encourage them to try, but realize it will not be perfect, and that is OK. Remember they are learning and doing so through a fun activity, so keep it fun so as not to squash their creativity and engagement.
After cutting the colors of the rainbow, glue them onto the white paper. Last, glue on a handful of white craft poms to make them look like clouds. Alternatively, you could also do little pots of gold, with black & gold craft poms or even just by drawing!
Target Concepts:
- Cutting (fine motor skill)
- Sequencing (first, next, then)
- Decoding (ROYGBIV acronym for matching the letter to the color name)
- Size (describe the size of each color)
- Texture Descriptions (paper vs. poms vs. glue)
Craft Supply List:
Sensory Bin
In my recent Valentine’s Day post, I went into a lot of detail about why I love sensory bins SO much.
For this bin, I kept it pretty simple and used some of the same items as the squish bag, to keep my supply list low. I filled a small tub with green paper grass, added some jewels and coins, then put a few sensory tools into it. There are a lot of additional, potential, add-ins to this bin, including some shamrocks (printed or purchased), rainbow colored craft poms, or even rainbow pieces of paper – the scraps from the craft above would work great!
At home, I allow my children to free play with sensory bins. I will say, the jewels and coins in this one are fairly small, so use your judgment according to your children’ s ages and safety level. You may need to supervise. Or, swap the jewels and coins for another, more safe item during free play.
In therapy, I tend to sit back for the first part of a sensory bin and just observe how a child interacts with the items, which items they tend to gravitate towards, and what actions they are doing. From there, I may model something new to expand their play or just verbally model what they are doing.
Target Concepts:
- Action words (scoop, dump, pull)
- Location words (in, under, up, down, on top)
- Color words
- Texture descriptions (smooth, shiny)
Sensory Bin Supply List:
Game
Games are a great way to teach a lot of different skills and concepts. I love using different types of games, including cards, dice, and movement (just to name a few). This game is a super simple spin off of the classic “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”.
Print the leprechaun and his hat, laminate them if you choose, hang it up, grab an eye cover (or tell your child to close their eyes), spin them, and send them on their way with the hat! You will get a lot of laughs and great opportunities to describe “what went wrong”.
Target Concepts:
- Location words (where they put the hat vs. where it was supposed to go)
- Turn-Taking
- Pronouns (me, my, you, your, his, hers)
St. Patrick’s Day Game Supply List:
- Print the 2 pages in the activity pack
- Laminator
- Laminating Sheets
St. Patrick’s Day Book List:
- I Spy St. Patrick’s Day
- There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Clover
- How To Catch A Leprechaun
- The Bearenstain Bears’ St. Patrick’s Day
- St. Patrick’s Day In The Morning
Therapy Strategies: How to Make These “Learning” Activities
While most of these activities work great for keeping children engaged in free play, which I talk a lot about in my Play post. There are also a lot of ways to use them as interactive activities between you and your child, between children in a small therapy group, or even in the classroom.
Below are a few therapeutic strategies that I would use to encourage learning within the activities:
- Modeling: I go into great detail about this strategy in the Narrating for Successful Language Development post. Basically, when you say what you are doing and why you are doing it, children observe the vocabulary, sentence structures, and more. Some examples of how to use this strategy are listed below
- Squish Bag:
- Model the steps you are using to make the bag
- Model the texture words: squishy, sticky, smooth, shiny
- Model the action words for manipulating the items inside
- Sensory Bin:
- Model the names of the items inside the bin
- Model the action words to manipulate the items
- Model what the child is doing (also known as parallel talk)
- Squish Bag:
- Structured Choices: I talk about this strategy in the next blog series we will cover on behavior. Stay tuned! But basically, structured choices are when we (the adults) offer the child 2 choices. When we do this, we allow them the independence to have some control and choose what they want, but we are satisfied with their choice, because we pre-determined the choices.
- Craft:
- Offer them to cut their own or cut lines you trace
- Offer them to cut specific colors and you cut the others
- Offer them to glue clouds at the bottom or pots of gold
- Game:
- Ask if they want their eyes covered or if they want to close them
- Ask which person will go first (and alternate to prevent arguments)
- Ask if they made it on or off the leprechaun
- Craft:
- Observe Wait Listen: I think I have discussed this strategy in almost every post in our Language Development Series. It is exactly as it sounds – observe your child, wait and don’t say anything, listen to what they are saying. Then, you can respond.
- Sensory Bin:
- Open the bin and observe what your child wants to play with and how. Wait and continue to observe, and give them the opportunity to communicate something. Listen to what they communicate. They may describe an item, action, or show that they are very interested in the bin or it may be aversive to them.
- Game:
- Explain the game and get your child started. Once they pin the hat and you uncover their eyes, observe and wait to see what they say. They may describe the location of their hat placement, laugh about how silly, or even describe how it is wrong. Listen to them before responding.
- Sensory Bin:
- Question a Little *Not a Lot*: We want them to engage in fun activities rather than feel as if they are being tested. We can build questions into our interactions and play, but they should not be the primary focus of our interactions. When I have had students in the past, I have given them a challenge to use 5 different strategies between every question. This is challenging, but worth a try! See an example below.!
- Squish Bag:
- “What does it feel like?” Question
- “Squishy and cold!” Modeling
- “I have jewels or coins.” Wait. Structured Choices and Intentional Waiting
- “Put them in… jewels first, now coins”. Modeling and Directive (following directions)
- “Your turn. What do you want to put in?” Question
- Squish Bag:
- Cloze (fill-in-the-blank): One way to reduce questions is to turn your question into a statement, but leave off the answer. For example, you can turn the question “what do you want?” into “you want the ____” and then wait to allow them to respond with their choice!
- Craft:
- You can describe the colors and sizes of their rainbow pieces
- “You have a big ___ and a small ___”
- You can work on turn-taking
- “I glued on green, now you are gluing ___”
- You can describe the colors and sizes of their rainbow pieces
- Craft:
St. Patrick’s Day Themed Snacks
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We will share some pictures and recipes for simple, toddler-approved, St. Patrick’s Day-Themed snacks. You can grab a shamrock shaped cookie cutter set: https://amzn.to/3MS1kX9 to make the snacks extra fun!
Snack Ideas
- Green Smoothies
- Veggies & Guac
- Shamrock Meat & Cheese
- Fruit Rainbow
- Clovers & Gold: Cucumbers & Hummus
One thing to consider when making fun holiday-themed foods is artificial dyes. It makes food fun, especially during holidays, but we know there are a lot of negative effects associated with them.
Try to opt for a natural food dye rather than a synthetic one. Super Natural is one brand we use: https://amzn.to/3LjSd0Q. They have dye powders as well as sprinkles.
Watkins is another artificial dye-free brand and they can often be found in big chain grocery stores or at: https://amzn.to/4sKPFtw. You can also make things colorful with foods that are rainbow, green, or gold in their natural form.
References:
Hanen Early Language Program (2022). It’s OWL About Having Fun: Promoting Your Child’s Language Through Fun Interactions.
Graphic Credits: The graphics and images used in all Pinterest Pins are not original images from Three Roads Therapy LLC. Obtained from Canva: alleksana from Pexels; AnnaStudio.co.uk; Anna Shvets from Pexels; canvasae; sketchify; sunnyrabbit. Some images included in the St. Patrick’s Day Activity Pack were also obtained from Canva: Moozate; sketchify; Deepack Deeart;
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