Leprechauns peeking,
Around a willow tree,
Pussy willows waking,
Longing to be free.
Colleens and shamrocks
And castles old and gray,
Put them all together
To make St. Patrick's Day.

(Name) is Wearing Green Today,
Green Today, Green Today,
(Name) is Wearing Green Today,
All Day Long!

Leprechaun, leprechaun, fly across the sea
And fetch an emerald shamrock for you and me.
Do not bring a nettle or a thistle for a joke,
But bring an Irish shamrock, for we are Irish folk.
And you and I, my leprechaun, will wear the shamrock gay,
And match it with and Irish smile upon St.Patrick's Day!

The Leprechauns are marching,
They're marching down the hall,
They're marching on the ceiling,
They're marching on the wall.
They're marching two by two,
And now it's four by four,
You say you still can't see them?
Move back! Here come some more!

The leprechauns are marching,
I think it's three by three.
Just close your eyes and try now
To take a look with me.
Their merry little feet
Will never miss a beat.
They're very tricky fellows.
Look out! They're under the sheet!

Today is the day fer the wearin' o' the green.
Today is the day when the little people are seen.
Today is St. Patrick's Day, so if ye'r Irish me lad,
Join the celebratin' fer the grandest time ta' be had.

Ya' put yer hand up in the air, the other hand on your hip.
Ya' tap yer toe, ya' tap yer heel, ya' bounce yer knee a wee bit.
Ya' prance 'n dance around the room, n' circle one two three.
The saints be praised, I must admit, ya' all look Irish ta' me.

St. Patrick's Day is with us,
The day when all that's seen
To right and left and everywhere
Is green, green, green!

And Irish tunes they whistle
And Irish songs they sing,
To-day each Irish lad walks out
As proud as any king.
I'll wear a four-leaf shamrock
In my coat, the glad day through,
For my father and mother are Irish
And I am Irish too!

Oh, my mother isn't Irish
And my father isn't too,
But today I feel as Irish
As the really Irish do.

For today I wear a shamrock
That is green in every way
And though I am American,
I am Irish -- for today!

An eensy, weensy leprechaun Came out St. Patrick's Day
To look for gold
That was hidden far away.
Over the rainbow
Was where he was told,
So, with a wink of his green eye,
He ran to get the gold.

I'm an Irish leprechaun,
Tiny and wee,
I hide in the forest,
Behind a tree.
If you ever catch me, you will see
A wish I will grant as quick as can be!

St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick came from Ireland
A country trimmed with green
It has the shamrocks and the pipes
Those leprechauns you've seen
Those leprechauns will trip you
You'll fall flat on your face
They'll tickle your nose and sour the milk
Then find a hiding place!

Shared Reading
Have You Seen My Pot of Gold?
from
25 Holiday & Seasonal Emergent Reader Mini-Books
(Grades K-1)
by Maria Fleming

This little book can be enlarged to make a wonderful shared reading experience for the children.

Day 1: Look at the cover. Who is this? What do you know about leprechauns? Talk about the leprechaun and his pot of gold.  Take a picture walk through the book as the leprechaun meets several animals while looking for his gold.
Read the story for enjoyment.

Day 2: Reread the story.  Encourage children to join in repetitive text.  Discuss speech bubbles as a way to tell the spoken word.

Day 3:  Reread story.  Focus on question and answer format.  Allow students to act out the story with props.

Day 4:  Reread story.  Talk about the surprise ending.  Can the children think of another way to end this story? Write a class story with an new invented ending.

Day 5:  Read class story innovation.  Illustrate pages for a class book.

Shared Writing

Make a cover titled, "Leprechaun, Leprechaun, Where is Your Gold?"
Bind and add book to the class library.

Little Readers

"One Potato, Two Potato"

This is a potato-shaped book! For illustrations, the students could draw or cut little brown potatoes to match the text.
They also could "potato stamp" using an actual potato.

The Pages:

One potato
Two potato
Three potato
Four
Five potato
Six potato
Seven potato
More!

The Cover:

The cover is a sheet of 9x12 brown construction paper cut into the shapes of two potatoes. The front and back cover fit on one sheet of brown paper. The covers and the pages are run off on a duplicator. The title is on a sentence strip which the students cut and glue on the front. Because of the potato shape, the pages must be cut out. Since this involves the cutting of 10 pages, you might want to extend this activity to a couple of days. The marker is a popsicle stick with a little potato painted or glued on.

Shamrock Sequencing 

Divide a piece of white construction paper into 6 equal size boxes (any excess can be cut off later).  Copy or draw a shamrock inside each box.  The shamrock should be close to the size of the box.   Photocopy onto green construction paper.  Program the shamrocks with numbers 1 – 10 or however many you’d like for your students to sequence. Laminate; cut out cards on the lines (not around the shamrocks).  The students will sequence the numbers in the correct order.  They can sequence them in a pocketchart, on a clothesline, on the floor, or on a tabletop.

Math Mats 

Photocopy large pots onto black construction paper; cut out and mount onto green construction paper.  Program the pots with numbers using a white paint pen or white/yellow numbers from
die-cuts.  Laminate. The students count out pieces of “gold” onto each mat to match the number on the pot. You can use Mardi Gras doubloons for gold. Try gold painted rocks/beans as gold “nuggets”, or use chocolate gold coins if you can find them.

You could change the look of this whole activity by mounting pots of gold onto green construction paper and programming them with numbers.  Instead of counting out gold to match the numbers, the students could add mini-eraser shamrocks to the Math Mats. 

"Pot of Gold" Shape Game

Place different laminated paper shapes in a black plastic cauldron type pot … as in “pot of gold.”  The pot is passed around the circle to each child, who pulls out a shape and says, "Do you know what I've been told? A (name shape) is in the pot of gold."

Measuring With Gold

Spray paint 3 bags of lima beans gold.   Measure things around the room with the "gold."  Measure what ever the children want...crayons, markers, and sometimes each other, and that's A LOT of counting! 

St. Patrick's Estimation

Fill your estimation jar with chocolate gold coins, or rainbow Skittles!

Potato Tasting & Graphing

Bring in different types of potato dishes for your kids to taste, baked, fried, mashed and scalloped. Graph which they liked best.

Potato Math Fun

Get a 5 LB bag of potatoes. As a class estimate how many potatoes are in the bag. Arrange them from biggest to smallest. Estimate how many teddy bear counters the biggest and smallest weigh, check your answer. Estimate how many eyes are on all the potatoes in the bag.

Shamrock Words

Make a set of shamrock cards.  Program with sight words. Use the shamrock cards for practicing putting words into alphabetical order  in a pocketchart (up to 10 words vertically) or elsewhere.  You could also use theme based words for alphabetizing:  elf, shamrock, gold, pot, rainbow, green, tiny, magic, etc.

Shamrock Match

Use Ellison die-cut shamrocks to make matching games.  You can program the shamrocks for many different activities:  matching capital to lowercase letters, matching numbers to dots, matching rhyming words, matching opposites, matching synonyms, matching words to form compound words, matching contractions to words that make up the contractions, matching addition/subtraction facts to the correct answer, etc.

Digging for Gold

Fill up flat trays with green, plastic flakes and add  "gold" beans.  Let the kids dig for gold.  Turn this into a math activity by having the kids roll dice and finding that many "gold"pieces.   It's fun just to make this a sensory experience and let them sift through the flakes for the "gold."  If you do not have flakes, you could dye rice green and use that instead.

Rice Rainbows

Dye rice 6 different colors and give the children an outline of a rainbow.  The children put on the glue, dump on the rice, and add cotton balls for clouds. 

Glitter Shamrocks

Using cookie cutters in the shape of shamrocks have the children dip the cutters into shallow pans of paint and press to paper.   After they have desired amount of shamrocks, they may add glitter.

Shamrock Wands

Materials:
green construction paper
scissors
glue
stapler
gold glitter
green straw
thin ribbon in both green and gold
heart form to trace

Cut three heart shapes from the green paper and glue the tips of the three shapes together to form a shamrock. Decorate the shamrock with glue and gold glitter. Staple the center of the shamrock to the end of the straw to make a handle. Cut three or more 3-foot ribbons. Hold the ribbons together and staple them to the back of the shamrock at the center so that the ends hang down from the shamrock wand. Cut several tiny shamrocks and staple them along the ribbons. Maybe your magic wand will help you catch a leprechaun!!

Magic Leprechaun Glasses

Cut green tagboard into shamrock shaped sunglasses with green cellophane covering the eye openings.  Look for Leprechauns all around the school!

Over the Rainbow

Materials needed: crayons or paint and a large sheet of paper.

1. Draw a huge rainbow for the group to color or paint.

2. Have the children fill in the arches with different colors.

Materials:
construction paper
scissors

Instructions:
Cut large shamrock shape our of green paper. Fold white paper accordion style for arms and legs. Cut small shamrocks for hands and feet. Glue at ends of accordion arms and legs. Decorate large shamrock as a face.

"Magic Powder"
(Pudding)

Materials:
Jell-O brand instant pistachio pudding
Milk

Use the pistachio pudding as "magic powder" that has been left by a leprechaun with directions to add milk and see what happens. (Jell-O brand instant pistachio pudding mix appears white until milk is added and then, it turns green!)

Lime Chocolate Smoothies

  Ingredients

  1 (3-oz)pkg.lime gelatin

  1 (8-oz.) container whipped topping

  1 Cup chopped nuts

  1/2 Cup chocolate pieces

  1/2 Cup cookie crumbs or toasted coconut

 Prepare gelatin with water as directed on package. When thickened add 1 Cup of whipped topping. Beat until smooth. Blend in remaining whipped topping. Stir in nuts and chocolate pieces. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Serve in a dish sprinkled with cookie crumbs or toasted coconut. Or when firm enough, roll into balls and roll balls in cookie or coconut mixture. Makes 16 to 18 balls.

Rainbow Writing

Make a rainbow shape out of paper.  On each ray have a frame Something that is red is _______, Something that is orange is _______, etc. When they finish they can draw what they would like to see at the end of their rainbow!

Shamrock Shake

Supplies:
Instant Pistachio pudding
Small container with lids
Milk
Plastic spoon for each child

Put a teaspoon of pistachio pudding in each container, add milk and let them shake and shimmy for about three minutes until the pudding thickens up and turns green.