I’m always up for new activities to do with spelling/vocab words. Here’s a new one I’ve come up with for kids to do this year…
1. write each word on its own shamrock
2. lightly color the shamrocks (unless you printed the worksheet on green paper)
3. cut out and glue on to construction paper (also draw a leprechaun, pot of gold, rainbow, etc.) or turn into a necklace, etc… just do something crafty with it.
Click here to download the free printable PDF: Shamrock Spelling
Here’s a fun free St. Patrick’s Day activity you can use as a fast finisher, or as a whole class activity. You can play a variety of ways: individually, as a team/individual trying to find words others haven’t (like with the game Scattergories), etc.
Click here to download the free printable PDF: St Patrick’s Day Word Warp
This fun St. Patrick’s Day writing activity uses the basic parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives) to help kids create a character analysis for a leprechaun. This could easily lead to a story, poem, etc. about the leprechaun.
Click here to download the PDF: Leprechaun Character Analysis
Catching leprechauns is a childhood favorite. Why not write about it!? I love hearing kids’ writing about how you go about catching a leprechaun. Good luck catching those pesky fellows!
Click here for the printable PDF: How To Catch a Leprechaun Writing Activity
Do some number patterns practice with this math worksheet for lower grades. The kids should write the missing number in the shamrock and then use the space below the number sequence to explain how they knew what number was missing. Enjoy!
Click here for the free printable PDF: St. Patrick’s Number Patterns
Here’s a great idea I saw at a family fun night: Holiday math hopscotch. This one was around Halloween, but you could easily adapt the game for Christmas, Valentine’s day… pretty much anything. The kids had to throw a cloth spider on a hopscotch square. Then they had to tell the teacher a problem that the number in the square was an answer to. Then they could hop to it and pick it up. (Make your hopscotch as long as you want to provide the kids more numbers to work with.) Kids loved it!
Submitted by an awesome teacher in AZ. Thanks!
The teacher I learned this idea from swears by it… and I totally see why! It doesn’t take very much effort on the teacher’s part, and it’s an entertaining way for kids to practice vocab! Here’s how it works:
Week Before: Using the week’s vocabulary words, write a few fill-in-the-blank style questions to test student’s vocabulary knowledge. For example, if the vocabulary list included the word “clumsy”, the teacher wrote this sentence: “The _____ girl bumped into the table and broke the vase.” Since the vocabulary list this teacher uses has 10 words on it, she writes 2 fill-in-the-blanks for each word. She says this takes her about 5 minutes a week to type and print these questions. She cuts them up into strips or cards on Microsoft Word and makes a set for each game board (see below). She uses the same game board for an entire season (changing to the next theme/holiday’s game board).
Week Of: When kids are done with an assignment (especially during the literacy block), they can play 5 in a row tic-tac-toe. Her game boards sometimes use a 3 x 3 grid, but when I talked to her, she suggested making 5 x 5 grids so the students have to practice more questions before the game ends. The teacher keeps each set so she can use it next year (their school uses the same vocabulary lists every year for each grade).
The Game Boards: I’ve made 8 game boards for different seasons. I suggest printing each one on different colored card stock so it’s easy to tell which ones go with which season and they will last longer than regular paper. In addition, laminate them if you can.
Click here for the free printable PDFs I made for this activity:
School themed game board
Valentines game board
St Patrick’s game board
Spring game board
Summer game board
Halloween game board
Thanksgiving game board
Winter game board
Here’s what the boards look like:
Squarehead Teachers 