Looking for some new traditions to get your family in the St. Patrick’s Day spirit?
Not everyone is Irish, but St. Patrick’s Day is a holiday most people can enjoy. I do not have any Irish in my heritage, but I always celebrate St. Patrick’s Day because it is seriously fun for adults and children alike!
Here are some fabulous and super fun ideas that are surely to get kids excited to explore this Irish holiday.
Find the Lucky Pennies
This is a neat little spin on the old tradition of Easter egg hunting. It involves lots of pennies and lots of shamrocks. Perfect for a St. Patrick’s Day traditional game!
I chose to use about 30 pennies, but you can definitely change that number based on how many you want your kids to find. Cut out small shamrock shapes out of paper to the pennies to. This part is totally optional, but it adds a nice touch and makes the pennies a bit easier to spot.
TIP: to make cutting shapes much faster, fold your paper a few times, so that you are cutting out 4 or 5 shapes at a time.
Tape the pennies to the back of the shamrocks. If you have trouble finding enough pennies, you can buy a rolls of pennies from the store or bank. There are 50 pennies in each roll.
Hide the pennies! You can set up little banks for each child, so they can drop their pennies in as they find them. You can find all sorts of little containers at the store, or use some cups you have on hand.
Once pennies are being found, set up a “St. Paddy’s Day Shop”. Buy cheap candy and toys at the store that kids can buy with their pennies.
For my store, I bought some Dum Dum lollipops, chocolate gold coins, and bubbles. For other cool ideas, check out the dollar section at Target. They have the cutest stuff!
I set prices at 2 or 3 cents so they can get a few things. If you have multiple children playing, you could set a limit for the number of pennies each child can find, so that it is fair.
Trap the Leprechaun
Who remembers playing this game in elementary school? When I was that age, we did this game every year and it was so fun!
The day before St. Patrick’s Day, or night before, have the kids make a leprechaun trap out of craft materials, such as popsicle sticks, construction paper, glue, tape, and string. To entice the leprechauns, you want to use “gold” because they love gold! Gold chocolate coins will work great for this. If you happen to have gold coins around, those will work perfect too.
This is a great opportunity to explain to children the Irish folk tales of leprechauns and trying to get their pot-o-gold.
This is the perfect opportunity to introduce some easy engineering learning at home, and to get kids’ brains churning in a fun way! Creating the traps is a creative experience, and children love dreaming up these little devices and the process of putting them together.
The most disappointing part of this game is that nobody catches the leprechaun and he takes the gold. Ah shoot! We really want that pot-o-gold 😉 The good news is, the leprechaun leaves a fun note and a little consolation prize. I usually do candy for the prize, but it can be what ever you want.
You can leave the note overnight, or while the kids are at school. The key is to just do it while they are away, so that they suspect nothing!
I had one teacher leave gold glitter behind as a trace of the leprechaun, so cute!
Lucky Charms Breakfast
This is a very easy way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and probably the tastiest!
I don’t know about you, but I rarely let my kids eat the sugary cereals from the grocery store. I consider them a special treat, kind of like dessert, and this is the perfect time to allow for a special treat.
Lucky Charms are a classic St. Paddy’s Day representation. They have a leprechaun on the box and rainbow marshmallows, for goodness sakes! While it is not an Irish tradition, it is definitely on-theme for this very Irish day.
Around this time of year, I notice that Lucky Charms comes out with special editions of the cereal, making this tradition even more special! I’ve even seen chocolate Lucky Charms on the shelf.
Serve Lucky Charms for breakfast, and watch those little faces light up with delight! The perfect way to start a St. Paddy’s Day morning.
You can even liven up the scene with some themed bowls and spoons. You can easily find plain green, or you can search around for St. Patrick’s Day specific themes at stores. I am willing to bet Target has some great options this time of year.
Green Food Day
This St. Patrick’s Day tradition is definitely one of my favorites, and was one of my favorites as a kid. Green food is awesome!
Even people who are not Irish understand the significance of the color green for St. Paddy’s Day. What better way to honor that tradition than eating up green food all day long?
The foods I suggest simply have green food coloring added. However, if you would prefer to avoid food coloring, I have a great post on naturally green foods for St. Patrick’s Day that you can check out.
Some simple ideas for breakfast are:
-Green pancakes
-Green cereal
-Green orange juice (add blue food coloring or blue Gatorade)
-Green scrambled eggs
Lunch ideas:
-Green hummus or green ranch as a dip
-Bake a loaf of green bread for sandwiches
-Green macaroni and cheese (add blue to yellow cheese and green to white cheese)
Dinner Ideas:
-Green rice
-Green mashed potatoes
-Green homemade pizza (add the coloring to the cheese and/or dough)
Decorate a Lucky Shirt
One of the biggest St. Patrick’s Day traditions is wearing green, and avoiding the ultimate punishment…getting pinched!
One way to guarantee you have something to wear on St. Paddy’s Day is to make a tradition of creating your own “lucky shirt”. I used to make t-shirts all the time for different activities, and I know how fun it is for kids of all ages.
The easiest way to do this activity is to check out the t-shirt aisle at your local craft store. I have seen these aisles at Joann, Michael’s, and Wal-Mart. All of the supplies you will need are in one place if you choose to buy these materials.
Basic items you will need are:
-a blank t-shirt (white or green will work best for this project)
-Fabric paint (puffy paint or liquid paint will work)
-Something to put inside the shirt while decorating it to avoid bleed-through
-Cheap brushes if you are using liquid paint
If you would like to save some money, a very cheap option is to buy blank t-shirts and then just buy craft acrylic paint to decorate. This option is perfect if you are just planning a one-time use of these t-shirts. I have done this multiple times and the shirt turns out perfect, and even withstood a couple of washes.
For some extra supplies, you could get some stencils to help make the shirts look extra refined. Another super cute addition is glitter and gemstones. Fabric glue should do the trick for sticking the glitter and gems.
Before you start decorating the shirt, you need to put something inside the t-shirt as a barrier between the front and back of the shirt. A good option is a piece of cardboard box, like a flattened cereal box. You could also find other things around the house like a baking sheet, silicone mat, or an old rag.
Decorate away! I like to look online at different St. Patrick’s Day shirts to get some inspiration. It would also be really cute to make a family set of matching shirts.
Grow Clovers
Growing plants with your children can be really fun and is always a great learning experience. Growing some clover for St. Patrick’s Day is a really unique and easy tradition.
There are a couple of ways you can go about growing clovers. One option is to start growing them when March begins, so that they are growing by the time St. Paddy’s Day comes. Another option is to start growing them on St. Patrick’s Day and watch the clovers form over the last half of the month. It’s up to you!
The best part of growing clovers is waiting to see if you can get a lucky four-leaf clover out of the bunch. It’s rare, but it really does happen!
The type of seed you are looking for is White Dutch Clover seed. To buy the seed, try your local nursery. Clover is very commonly mixed in with grass seed, because that is a popular option for lawns. If you cannot find it in stores, or can only find it in large bulk, try online. I found really cute Shamrock seed packets on Amazon and they worked great for me!
Plant it in a normal pot with soil. The seed depth should not exceed ¼ of an inch because they are very small seeds. They will not grow quickly or at all if planted too deeply. Water the seeds regularly.
IMPORTANT WARNING: White clover flowers will attract bees because they are very fragrant. To avoid this, grow the plant indoors, or cut the flowers off when they grow. The actual shamrock clovers are the leaves of the flowers. For this experiment, the flowers are not needed.
If you are having trouble growing the clovers, or cannot find the seed, try going to find some in a field and searching for a four leaf clover. Next time you are at a park with grass, scan the field for some clovers. They are often mixed in with grass when growing large fields. Clover is found everywhere where I live, even in parks because grass is very high maintenance in our heat, and clover grows like a weed (because it is one!).
Finding clovers as a family is a fun learning tradition for St. Patrick’s Day.
Have an Irish dinner
Are you dreading to read this section because you think I am going to suggest corned beef and cabbage for dinner? Great news! Corned beef is actually not a dish traditionally served in Ireland. It is an Irish-American dish that can most definitely can still be served on St. Patrick’s Day, but it is not a suggestion I make in this post.
Instead, think more along the lines of stews, sausages, bacon, potatoes, onions, and soda bread.
There are not many better ways to experience a culture than to sample the culture’s food. Having an Irish dinner with your family is a fantastic way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and to teach your children about Ireland. You definitely do not need to be Irish to appreciate these absolutely delicious comfort food dishes!
If you have adventurous kids who are very open to trying new foods, then I highly suggest making Dublin Coddle and Colcannon. The coddle is a scrumptious, slow cooking stew that is made with sausage, bacon, onions, and potatoes. I made it for my husband and he was so delighted! The Colcannon is a traditional Irish mashed potato recipe with cabbage, bacon, and onions mixed in. I’ve made this one too and it is so, so good!
Photo Credit: SimplyScratch.com
Photo Credit: JamesandEverett.com
As a mother of a toddler, I completely understand the pickiness of most children. In that case, you can make something more suited for young taste buds like these delicious Irish nachos, and classic Irish soda bread for a side dish.
Photo Credit: CookingWithCurls.com
Photo Credit: LetsDishRecipes.com
Bonus Ideas:
Green Root Beer Floats:
You can either add some green food coloring to classic vanilla, or you can use mint chocolate chip ice cream as your green ice cream. To get an extra green kick, you can use cream soda instead of root beer, because the lighter soda can be died green.
Leprechaun Hats:
You can craft some leprechaun hats out of black or green paper. It’s basically just a top hat with a curled up brim. Don’t forget the buckle!
Leprechaun Footprints:
Leaving cute little leprechaun footprints around the house is a sweet little treat for kids! You can make them with washable paint on any non-porous surface, like on the bathroom sink, or the kitchen counter. Kids will be so excited to see this surprise!
Tay Tay Mommay 