This easy to follow step by step tutorial is a fun art activity for St. Patrick’s Day for all ages! The printable tutorial is available in my Etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/EileenMcKennaArt.
**For more fun St. Patrick’s Day ideas read Teaching Children about Ireland.
There are so many fun ideas for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at school while teaching your students about Ireland. A visit to Ireland is a feast for all your senses and these ideas cover many of them.
As the children approach school, or come into the classroom – play the sounds of the bagpipes. For our celebration we were lucky enough to have one of the school’s own alumni, a boy named Patrick, play the bagpipes. The Irish flag hung in the school’s foyer.
Start the day with a greeting in Gaelic and an Irish Brogue. Our morning announcements featured Irish poet Connie Roberts who read an Irish poem.
The landscape of Ireland is one of its greatest features. Consider setting up a “Walking Tour of Ireland” by filling your school or classroom with photos of the beautiful landscapes.
Our classes took turns taking a tour and looking at the photos and reading and learning about what was pictured. Other things that were visually represented included the painted doors of Dublin and different sports in Ireland (soccer, hurley, etc.).
Ask the children to bring in any items from Ireland they might have. Children can take turns telling the class about the items they brought in.
We had a cabinet filled with items – sweaters, tea pots, crystal vases and glasses, caps, shillelaghs, etc.
Ireland is said to have “40 Shades of Green.” Many of the fields of Green are sprinkled with sheep, uniquely painted to show ownership.
Prior to the day, students were given an outline of a sheep to cut out and decorate anyway they liked. The instructions with the sheep stated,
“Decorate a sheep for International Day – Ireland. Use any material (cotton balls, pipe cleaners, paint, etc.). Be creative! Farmers often mark their sheep with a colored dot, so they know which sheep is theirs. How will you mark your sheep? Fun Fact: There are approximately 8 million sheep in Ireland!”
The tours culminated in visiting our Blarney Castle which we had built out of appliance boxes. The kids visited and learned about receiving the “gift of gab.”
Children will enjoy watching traditional Irish Step Dancing. YouTube is filled with videos you can show. Children will especially enjoy seeing kids their age perform and seeing the elaborate costumes and wigs.
We were lucky enough (pre-pandemic of course) to enjoy a performance by Schade Academy of Irish Dance, a local Irish step dancing school. The dancers were fabulous, even the very, very youngest. Their traditional Irish step dancing outfits were beautiful!
“The Irish now drink more tea per capita than any other nation in the world – between six and seven cups a day.” Source: The Irish Times. Serve some tea with scones with jam or other baked goods.
We visited the classrooms and served tea. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to serve hot tea but the children got the idea.
There are many creative projects for the kids to work on. Coloring pages are a great way to show children the symbols, landscape, and even mythical stories of Ireland. The kids can create their own books!
This step by step easy tutorial will have kids drawing their own leprechauns in no time!
For older kids I’ve created a painting tutorial that allows them to paint in many shades of green!
These printable art activities are available in my Etsy shop at: www.etsy.com/shop/EileenMcKennaArt
I’d love to hear the creative ways you celebrated St. Patrick’s day in school!
March is a great time to teach children about Ireland. Coloring pages are a great way to show children the symbols, landscape, and even mythical stories of Ireland. I’ve created coloring pages that include:
These printable coloring sheets are available individually or order the printable book which contains several sheets together. Fold them and create your own book about Ireland!
Printables are available in my Etsy shop at: www.etsy.com/shop/EileenMcKennaArt
**Related post:
Read Teaching Children about Ireland.
Cue the bagpipes. Let’s get ready for St. Patrick’s Day!
Visit my Etsy shop for printable coloring pages:
downloadable clipart:
and invitation borders:
Order St. Patrick’s Day flair in my Zazzle shop!
Create an Irish Blessing sign with this free downloadable pdf and transfer tips.
I’m proud to be Irish and like to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day and decorate the house to celebrate. My new leprechaun illustration is available on hats, T-shirt’s, and pins in my Zazzle shop!
Create an Irish Blessing sign with a downloadable pdf in this blog post. The blog post includes tips on transferring the poem to a wooden surface.
It amazes me how different the weather in NY can be on St. Patrick’s Day. One St. Patrick’s Day years ago, before kids, it was a warm, blue sky, beautiful day in New York City. I said to myself, “I will never work on St. Patrick’s Day again. I should be at the parade.” The next year, I took off, and as I headed to the parade it was snowing. This year there are blue skies – but it is very cold!
These illustrations are from the year I did a 17 day St. Patrick’s Day countdown. I created an illustration each day. These days I’m working on my beach painting project.
Hope you have a great day!
Eileen
P.S. – The second issue of my new newsletter My Creative Collection went out today. It’s a collection of what is inspiring me – in hopes of inspiring you! Learn more here. Sign up here.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been creating illustrations for St. Patrick’s Day and posting to Instagram. For each idea I have, I draw/paint multiple versions to see which one I like the best. It dawned on me, the it isn’t just hand-lettering that takes “Practice, practice, practice.” I have to draw several “takes” before I create an illustration that I like. I also take pictures along the way to see how the illustration will look when it’s finished, and to make sure I like the background and how it fits in the shot.
This way of working is new to me. In the past, I’d sit down to create a painting, and try to make it work. I began working in this way since starting my themed postings (first Valentine’s Day, then St. Patrick’s Day). I doodle, I paint, I plan in pencil. I try again. I wouldn’t say it’s about getting it perfect, it’s more about warming up and trying different things.
I really enjoy following one theme. The first couple of days are easy. After that, there is the period where I’m like, “What am I going to do now?” In both cases, the more creative ideas came to me towards the end of the campaign. I guess it’s the time when I dig a little deeper. All the obvious ideas are out of the way, so I have to think harder.
This Valentine’s Day post was one of my favorites:
This grumpy guy is my favorite St. Patrick’s Day post so far:
I’m planning another Instagram art series and I’d like you to join in the fun! The theme is St. Patrick’s Day. Include #mcrstpatricksday in your Instagram post. Join me for a day or all 17 days (March 1 – 17th). It will be fun!
I had a great time last month posting Valentine’s Day art for 14 days. Working within the same theme was really interesting. You really explore the theme as the days go by, and you come up with different ideas. I used several different mediums: watercolor, watercolor and ink, scanned doodles from my sketchbook and painted them in Photoshop, created a pattern, and a linocut.
Hope to see you on Instagram! Look for me: mycreativeresolution 🙂
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I am so happy today (in honor of St. Patrick’s Day) to bring you the doll version of my Claddagh Fairy. All thanks to my niece, Ryan, my illustration has come to life – in doll form! Thank you Ryan!
See more illustrations from the Claddagh Fairy and my journey to develop a children’s book illustration style.
The Claddagh Fairy is copyrighted. Unauthorized use of this blog’s content, text and artwork is prohibited. Re-blogging and/or sharing links is allowed provided that http://www.mycreativeresolution.com is credited and a direct link to the original content is included. Thank you.
Ah it’s March. Spring will be here soon, and warm weather I hope! St. Patrick’s Day is also around the corner. I love decorating the mantle in my family room for the season/holiday. This year, I added to my mantle a couple of homemade projects. You may remember my Irish Blessing sign, created using a Citrasolv transfer technique. Recently, I created my first paper quilt, in a green “Irish” theme, which was a fun and easy project. I’m looking forward to creating a “beachy” themed one soon.
I also hung a couple of our family crests. I was inspired by “Game of Thrones.” In the books, each family has a banner representing their “house.” Symbols on the banners include a lion, wolf, fiery heart and even an onion. I found our crests online and wrote the family names on the back. I thought it would be fun for the kids to flip them over, to find out the names. Surprisingly the kids have never heard of the family names a few generations back.
In addition to these homemade elements, I grabbed every green candle I had! I also hung two leprechauns that I had with my Christmas ornaments. I hung a string of shamrocks with the family crests. I added my son’s school project – a rainbow over a pot of gold. I love including the kid’s projects with my decorations. I thought the Celtic cross and the Belleek vase were nice “authentic” additions. I used fake greenery, since I wasn’t able to find any shamrocks!
Cead míle fáilte!
(hundred thousand welcomes)
link to Irish phrases
