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March is always an exciting month in kindergarten! With so much to learn and do, it can be challenging to also squeeze in a holiday celebration for St. Patrick’s Day. This is where thematic units are so helpful! Students can practice a variety of important literacy and math skills as they celebrate and learn more about St. Patrick’s Day. In this post, I’m going to show you all of the different skills your students can practice in a fun and engaging St. Patrick’s Day thematic unit.
Students can strengthen their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills as they learn more about leprechauns.
Your students will enjoy learning about leprechauns as a class. After reading St. Patrick’s Day picture books together, you can document what you learn on an anchor chart. They can also complete their own individual graphic organizers. These visual aids will come in handy for the next activity.
Your students can use the format of the anchor chart to help them complete a leprechaun flip book. They will write and illustrate their own informational sentences. Since the flip book has the same sections as the anchor chart, students can reference it as they complete their books.
There are many fun ways to incorporate St. Patrick’s Day festivities into addition and subtraction practice!
You can help your class practice addition, subtraction, or both with this lift-the-flap activity. Students will match the equation on each pot of gold with the correct answer.
Another fun way to practice addition and subtraction is with an interactive board game. Students will take turns choosing a card, solving the equation, and will then move their piece that number of spaces.
As students get more comfortable with addition and subtraction, they can also practice solving story problems! These St. Patrick’s Day story problem books come with manipulatives that students can cut out and use to model the addition and subtraction problems.
What St. Patrick’s Day unit is complete without a leprechaun craft? As students create this adorable leprechaun, they will also be practicing addition and subtraction! The leprechaun is holding two gold coins with math equations. Both equations will equal the number on the large gold coin beneath. These leprechauns look great on a St. Patrick’s Day bulletin board!
A sneaky leprechaun can help students practice subtraction! Students will model a variety of subtraction equations with their very own gold (I use painted beans).
A St. Patrick’s Day thematic unit can also include engaging practice with graphing and interpreting data.
After learning about leprechauns, it’s time for students to vote on whether or not they believe in leprechauns. You can collect and organize the class votes to show students how it creates a pie graph. Students can then create their own pie graph to document the class votes.
Another fun way to help students practice creating a pie graph is to ask ten friends whether or not they believe in leprechauns. The recording sheet includes space for tally marks and a pie graph template that students can fill in.
Rainbow-colored candy is the perfect way to practice sorting and graphing in a St. Patrick’s Day thematic unit. Each student is given a small bag of Skittles that they sort by color on a mat. Then they can graph and analyze the data on their own recording sheet. There’s even space to practice addition by combining the amounts of different colors.
A St. Patrick’s Day thematic unit can also include important reading practice!
Bring some St. Patrick’s Day fun to sight word practice with a fun game. Students will take turns choosing a gold coin from the bag. If they can read the word on the coin, they can put the coin in their pot. If they can’t, they return the coin to the bag. There is a sneaky leprechaun in the bag, ready to take all of the coins of the student who draws the leprechaun coin. This game is a great addition to your March centers!
Students can practice reading a variety of sight words and decodable words in this “Where Is My Pot of Gold” reader. The predictable pattern of the story helps students feel successful as they read the printable book. They are always so excited to take their readers home to share with their families.
Finally, you can help students strengthen their fine motor and writing skills during your St. Patrick’s Day unit.
Students can practice writing words that they find on lucky clovers around the room. This is a great activity to get students moving! This activity is perfect for whole group instruction, literacy centers, or even early finishers!
After reading the pot of gold story, students can write their own! They can use this helpful graphic organizer to decide on their story elements.
Once the leprechaun story organizer is complete, students can get to work on their stories! This project can be broken up over several days. Students can write and illustrate each page, then complete the front cover. A rainbow painted with cotton swabs is the final addition! It’s a great activity for practicing pincer grasp and hand-eye coordination.
Are you planning a St. Patrick’s Day thematic unit for your class? Let me save you some time! All of the activities shown above can be found in one easy-to-download resource. These printable St. Patrick’s Day activities also include a unit-at-a-glance PDF to help you plan a cohesive week of learning! If you’d like to take a closer look at these activities, you can find this resource in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
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These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
