Are you looking for creative ways to incorporate St. Patrick’s Day into your lesson plans? You’re in the right place because this post is packed with fun and educational St. Patrick’s Day activities for upper elementary! From planning a trip to Ireland using math skills to learning fun facts about the holiday through literacy activities, there are countless ways to bring the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day into your classroom. As always, these math and literacy St. Patrick’s Day activities are not only fun but also educational, making them perfect for celebrating the holiday while keeping learning at the forefront.
St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Math
Over the years, I have created several math picture activities to use throughout the year to practice math skills. Students will create their family crest in this differentiated St. Patrick’s Day math picture. It includes versions for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades! This St. Patrick’s Day math activity is FREE, too!
Need a St. Patrick’s Day math activity that is a bit more in-depth? You might not be able to take your students on a real trip to Ireland, but this math project comes close! Your students will LOVE practicing their addition and subtraction skills while planning their trip to Ireland. It’s one of the projects that my students are most enthusiastic about year after year!
Students take a 5-day trip to Ireland with a $3,500 budget. They must carefully spend their money and keep close track of their budget so they don’t go over. The price sheets are differentiated for students— one sheet uses only $5 and $10 increments whereas the other uses all dollar amounts.
For perimeter and area practice, try this mini-project! Students will map their parade route and place parade floats onto their route, all with specified dimensions, areas, and perimeters. I designed this project a few years ago for my students, and it has been a hit ever since!
St. Patrick’s Day Math By the Numbers is perfect for 4th grade and up (and advanced 3rd graders) as an engaging way for your students to work on math skills and apply them to 🍀 real-world situations simultaneously! Students will explore the holiday through real-world facts. A few features of the resource include:
- Multi-Step AND Single-Step problems
- Increases conceptual AND computational understanding
- Comparing and Ordering Large Whole Numbers
- Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication practice
This set of 27 half-page St. Patrick’s Day math task cards reviews every single 4th-grade math standard. With such a variety of questions, it’s the perfect resource to differentiate learning in upper elementary math all month long, and it’s particularly excellent for test prep!
It’s also the perfect time of year for rainbow candy math with Skittles for differentiation in grades 3-6. Use these as a math center, assessment, activity, test prep, review, etc. Your students will love them! The pages cover 16 different upper elementary math skills, so you’ll find an activity perfect for your plans this month!
St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Literacy
Reading fluency is always in season! This set of St. Patrick’s Day fluency task cards is perfect for small group, whole group, or independent center fluency activities. The cards focus on Ireland’s geography, history, symbols, castles, attractions, holidays, and more!
Then, use these St. Patrick’s Day Reading task cards to cover various reading and literacy skills. Each card has a fun March theme and addresses important events in US history, doubling the educational value while covering 12 key reading skills. Look at all the skills you’ll cover:
- Main Idea
- Context Clues
- Sequencing
- Inference
- Compare & Contrast
- Cause & Effect
- Fact & Opinion
- Story Elements
- Literal Comprehension
- Point of View
- Author’s Purpose
- PLUS 16 Enrichment Task Cards!
More Spring Ideas
When you finish with these St. Patrick’s Day activities, here are more posts to help you make the spring season a memorable and enriching experience for your students!
Mary Montero
I’m so glad you are here. I’m a current gifted and talented teacher in a small town in Colorado, and I’ve been in education since 2009. My passion (other than my family and cookies) is for making teachers’ lives easier and classrooms more engaging.
