March can be a tough month for teaching. The weather is getting warmer, everyone is ready for Spring Break, and it’s almost time to start thinking about test prep. Luckily, we have St. Patrick’s Day to brighten up those March lesson plans! Let’s take a look at some fun, standards-based St. Patrick’s Day reading activities that you can try in your reading workshop.
Affiliate links included below.
St. Patrick’s Day Read-Alouds
I never pass up a chance for an interactive read-aloud! This is a great way to model and practice reading comprehension skills like:
- making predictions
- drawing conclusions
- summarizing important details
- identifying character traits
- identifying cause and effect relationships
- inferring word meaning
- identifying sensory words
Here are a few of my favorite St. Patrick’s Day fiction picture books to read aloud in grades 3-5:
The Leprechaun’s Gold by Pamela Duncan Edwards is a fun story to use to introduce or review legends or the fantasy genre. It’s also a nice mentor text for discussing character traits and theme. And I love that it introduces students to the harp and its importance in Irish culture.
Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato is a classic Tomie DePaola story and, like above, perfect for introducing folklore. I love the humor in this simple story and the many text-to-text connections kids can make with this book.
Fiona’s Luck by Teresa Bateman has a great plot in which a clever young girl outsmarts the leprechaun king despite his tricks and riddles. Some teaching points you can focus on include theme, plot, figurative language, and using context clues.
And we can’t forget How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace. Chances are that students have already read this one, but it’s still a fun read-aloud, especially if you plan to make leprechaun traps! Plus, it doubles as a writing mentor text for how-to pieces and other informational writing.
I also love introducing students to limericks! After reading some (school-appropriate) examples together, I love to have students try writing their own. This is a nice tie-in to Poetry Month coming up in April!
St. Patrick’s Word Analysis Activities
Any holiday is a good opportunity to work in themed word analysis practice. These St. Patrick’s Day word analysis worksheets and Google Forms are so fun! They cover skills like context clues, synonyms and antonyms, prefixes, suffixes, and root words, homophones, and dictionary skills. And there’s also a page to review grammar and punctuation.
Each question stands alone, so you can have students do a whole page at once or just a few questions if you’re short on time. I like these for stations, morning work, and early finishers.
St. Patrick’s Day Reading Comprehension Passages
Incorporating holidays into reading workshop is one of my favorite ways to spice up reading comprehension practice.
I created these St. Paddy’s Day reading passages specifically to be high-interest and engaging for students but also standards-based! Each text has 8-9 comprehension questions that hit essential 4th grade reading skills.
This set includes:
- a fictional story about a girl making a leprechaun trap
- a nonfiction article about ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day
- a functional text recipe for Irish soda bread
You can find these St. Patricks comprehension passages here!
St. Patrick’s Day Reading Strategies Bookmarks
Finally, you can grab some FREE St. Paddy’s-themed reading strategies bookmarks from my friend at Creative Classroom Core. These look so helpful for students to use during reading groups and independent reading all March long. Plus, they’re super cute!
Whether you are new to teaching or just looking for some fresh St. Patrick’s Day reading activities this year, I hope this post gave you some ideas you’re excited to try! Let me know what else you’ve got planned for your 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders on St. Patrick’s Day!
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