One of my very favorite ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day is with a big ‘ole bowl of Lucky Charms cereal! It’s not something we keep in the house most of the year, so it’s a super fun and simple way to add a little extra excitement to the holiday!
So it comes as no surprise that I NEEDED to include Good Luck Charm Preschool centers in our Preschool curriculum! Whether you’re teaching in the classroom or at home, you’ll love how easy it is to bring this seasonal theme to life without the overwhelm of planning it all yourself. Below you’ll find tons of activities and tips!
Table of Contents – CLICK to jump ahead!
St. Patrick’s Day Theme Sensory Bin
One of the easiest ways to add excitement and hands-on learning to your preschool week is with a themed sensory bin. So many of the activities in our Good Luck Charm Preschool pack incorporate a sensory bin, so it’s best to knock out the preparation early on! Our St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin is always a hit—it’s simple to put together and offers tons of playful learning opportunities! Here’s how I like to set ours up!
FIRST, gather your materials. I like to use a plastic storage bin with a lid so I can cover and store the bin once it’s prepared. Choose your filler, like the dry black beans we use in ours. Something about the black beans really makes all the colors in our Good Luck Charm activities POP and gives children a very unique texture to experience. Once you’ve chosen your filler, fill your storage bin as much as you feel comfortable with (knowing each individual child can handle working with different amounts of materials).
NEXT, grab some extra St. Patrick’s Day themed items like plastic gold coins, glittery clovers, rainbow colored pompoms, etc. These items make the perfect backdrop for the printable items in our preschool Good Luck Charm activities! Scatter them throughout your sensory bin filler and watch the theme really come to life!
FINALLY, choose a space that you feel comfortable using the sensory bin with your child. I tuck ours away in our homeschool room with the rest of our Preschool manipulatives, and keep our sensory bin blanket nearby for when it’s time to get to work. The rule with our bins – everything stays on the blanket! This makes clean up SO much easier.
READY, SET, PLAY!!! When your sensory bin is not being used for the printable activities in our Good Luck Charm Preschool theme, allow children to explore freely! Watch them scoop, pour, dig, and more! I love taking our bin our when I need a little extra quiet time for homeschooling an older child, or honestly if I just need an extra minute to sip my hot coffee!
This Good Luck Charm Preschool theme is sure to give your little learners TONS of fun practice! Children will have 15 center-style activities to choose from – 5 Math, 5 Literacy and 5 Fine Motor centers. In addition, I’ve included book recommendations for 5 good luck charm theme picture books and links to their read aloud videos on YouTube!
To use these printables, you can follow the PRE-MADE lesson plans for a week full of fun! Each of the 5 pre-planned days your students will have 1 read aloud, 1 Math activity, 1 Literacy activity, and 1 Fine Motor activity to work on. This is a great pace for little learners! But if you’d like to spread the activities out or rearrange them according your own child’s needs, simply print our provided Build-Your-Own Plans page and make your own plans!
PS See how we use this theme in our Preschool scope and sequence by grabbing our FREE Preschool Curriculum Map below!
Math Activities
This set of printables has 5 fun Good Luck Charm Preschool theme activities for practicing early Math skills. Children will practice number formation, number identification, counting, colors, and shapes. Our Preschool activities always include the use of small manipulatives for added fine motor skills practice!
One of my favorite Good Luck Charm theme Math activities is the activity shown above! There are so many ways to use this one set of cards! To begin, have children count the good luck charms on the cards and cover them one-by-one with a manipulative of their choice. This is a great way to practice one-to-one correspondence! Then, children can use those same manipulatives to build the number on the card. Or trace the number with a dry erase marker if they’re ready.
Want to extend this activity? Guide students as they put the cards in number order from 0-10, or even backwards from 10-0! And if you’re also working with older students and siblings, they can use these cards to practice comparing numbers and addition by adding up the leaves on more than one card!
Literacy Activities
In addition to the Math centers, this set includes 5 early Good Luck Charm Preschool Literacy activities! Children will practice skills like letter identification, letter formation, beginning sounds, and handwriting practice with good luck charm theme vocabulary words!
I love turning sensory bins into academic experiences! To step up your sensory bin game, add these sweet little alphabet cards to your bin. Children choose one card at a time, identify the letter on the card, and then find and cover its match on the mat!
BONUS TIP: Extend this activity by guiding children in identifying the sound each letter makes, and even coming up with words that begin with the sounds!
Fine Motor Activities
When working with little learners, strengthening fine motor skills is a must! Our 5 Good Luck Charm theme fine motor activities will have your children working hard and having TONS of fun! They will build patterns, mold using play dough, match pictures, and so much more!
Pattern strips are such a great way for little learners to practice important skills like visual discrimination, fine motor skills, matching, and more! These strips give children lots of chances to practice with their good luck charm marshmallows!
And… I Planned FOR YOU!
This set of activities (and all of the other 45+ sets in our FULL Preschool Curriculum) include a full week of print and go visual lesson plans! It shows you exactly which books and printables to use each day for a 5-day school week, making lesson planning an absolute breeze!
Want to build your own? Or maybe your kiddos are ready for some of the activities but not all of them? That’s great! Use the included Build Your Own lesson plans page! These thematic centers were designed with growing learners ages 2.5 to 5 years old in mind, so this lesson planning page allows you to choose which activities your child is ready for right now!
More March fun!
Ready to learn with your toddlers or Preschoolers ALL MONTH LONG?! You can save TONS when you grab this set of centers in our March Preschool Curriculum! The bundle includes 4 engaging March themes (like St. Patrick’s Day, weather, and more!), complete with a week of lesson plans for each! You’ll also get 25 NO PREP St. Patrick’s Day themed fine motor skills worksheets and crafts, and 38 NO PREP Math and Literacy worksheets for extended practice!
Let’s hang out!
I hope this post helped you get a better look at our Good Luck Charm Theme Preschool activities! Got questions? Let me know! I’d love to chat and get to know you better! You can find us below in some of our favorite places to hang out. Can’t wait to chat with you about your Preschooler’s learning journey!
SAVE THIS POST FOR LATER!
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