Three St. Patrick’s Day Activities To Leap Over!

Hello everyone!

Can you believe we’re already in the second week of March? Whoa! With St. Patrick’s Day coming up next weekend, we wanted to share with you a couple of interventions that you can use in your sessions/classrooms. We know you are all incredibly busy, so we’ve made sure to minimize prep time required! Take a peak below.

Dance, Dance, Leprechaun Dance

Set to the familiar tune of “Skip to My Lou”, this song gets your kids up and moving. It’s verses are repetitive, which gives your clients many opportunities to be successful! Click here to listen to a version on youtube! We like to adapt the lyrics and change them to fit the needs of each group that we are working with. Here are some possible verses you could include!

1. Wave, wave, leprechaun, wave
2. Clap, clap, leprechaun, clap
3. Stomp, stomp, leprechaun, stomp
4. Jump, jump, leprechaun, jump

Pot-O-Gold Songwriting

This intervention is a cute way for your kids to use self-expression and creative thinking skills. We LOVE giving our students the opportunity to come up with new ideas and share them with the group to create a cohesive project. Follow the steps for this activity
below!

1.  Pick a simple Irish song melody to rewrite the words to. We especially like “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” and “My Wild Irish Rose.”
2. Sing through the original song with your clients.
3. Once you have sung through the song, ask the clients to think about what they would do if they each had a pot of gold to spend.
4. Brainstorm a list their ideas on a white board or piece of paper.
5. Work together to fit the ideas into the melody of the song that you chose. It’s totally okay if the words don’t rhyme!
6. Write the song phrase by phrase. Hum through the melody of the phrase you are rewriting so your clients can hear what it sounds like (forward chaining). As they give you ideas, sing them back to them and see what it sounds like! Repeat these steps for the entire song.
7. Sing your new ORIGINAL song together! Talk about how it feels to create something of their own.
8. If you can, print out a copy of the song and hand out to all members of the group!

Musical Shamrocks

This is a movement intervention that could be used to focus on a ton of different goal areas, including reading, gross motor, fine motor, mirroring movements, sustained attention, turn-taking, social interaction…the options are endless! It is a simple version of the popular ‘hot potato’ game. Check out the material list and directions below!

What you’ll need:

• Laminated shamrocks with different movements or actions written on them. Some examples could be:
  • Clap
  • Stomp
  • Jump
• Frame Drum or Tambourine with a head
• A foam ball, stuffed animal, or anything else that can be passed around the circle as the “hot potato”
• A bluetooth speaker and a fun St. Patrick’s day playlist. (To find songs that suit your age group, just do a simple google search for St. Patrick’s Day songs). Some songs on our list are:
  • “Irish Lullaby”
  • “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover”
  • “I’m a Little Leprechaun”
  • “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling”

Directions:

1. Set your group up in a circle, and begin playing the music.
2. Start passing your “hot potato” around the circle.
3. Whoever is holding it when the music stops gets to pick a movement card out of the drum. (It’s okay to pick and choose who the music stops on so everyone get a turn!)
4. Turn the music back on and instruct the group to do the movement all together.
5. Repeat until all the movements have been performed, or all group members have been “it”.

And that’s it! We hope your kiddos enjoy these cute and simple interventions as much as we do! Stay tuned for next week’s blog post containing some St. Patrick’s Day themed DIY crafts.

Much love,

Lacey