Fun March Activities for your K-1 Classroom
When I think of March, I think of the rainbows, pots of gold, and the color GREEN! I love all the fun leprechaun-themed learning that can be done in the classroom! St. Patrick’s Day brings so many opportunities for you to do engaging math, literacy, and science activities that students get excited about.
Read below to find out a few of my faves!
Rainbow Writing Craftivity
These craftivities make the cutest bulletin board display for March! Print them on colored paper or have your students color them on their own. This activity comes with several writing prompt options for you to choose from to fit your needs.
March Read Alouds
There are so many fun leprechaun stories to read to your class during the month of March! Grab these and browse a few more of my favorites in my Amazon list HERE.
Silly McGilly!
Have you heard of Silly McGilly? He’s the cutest little leprechaun that visits our classroom each year.
After reading the book Silly McGilly with your class on the last day of February, they can expect a visit from him on March 1st!
Silly McGilly is a little different from that pesky elf that visits in December because Silly just sits on a shelf (you don’t have to worry about moving him around). He DOES occasionally leave simple, sly tricks in our classroom for us to find (switching cubby name tags, switching calendar days, taping his picture on to our class photo, changing the “S” on the alphabet to SILLY, etc.)!
Silly McGilly is always a class favorite. It’s just sweet to see your students get excited about something so small, and that takes little to no time for you to set up.
We do a fun writing craftivity that pairs with this book (it has several writing prompts for you to choose from), and we keep track of his tricks by recording them in our trick journals! You can find my Silly McGilly resource here.
St. Patrick’s Day Literacy and Math Activities Pack
Don’t miss out on this super fun activity pack! It’s packed full of hands-on and low-prep activities for your centers/stations, fast finishers, review work, or independent practice! This pack focuses on syllables, rhyming, beginning and ending sounds, non-standard measurement, place value, and ten frames!
Leprechauns Can/Have/Are Flip Book
We always create this chart and complete this flip book after reading “How to Catch a Leprechaun.” It’s always so much fun filling in the anchor chart together with my students because they have such good ideas!
Lucky Word Hunt
Add this Lucky Word Hunt to your Word Work station this month to spice things up! Students will grab a pot of gold (from Dollar Tree) or a rainbow container (from Walmart in the Easter section), read the word that is inside, and sort it into the correct column and record it.
This Lucky Word Hunt can be found HERE and it includes 8 different phonics skills!
My Bowl of Luck Math Activity
This is always a student favorite. They talk about it for DAYS afterwards! I always love math that you can eat! Grab a box of Lucky Charms Cereal and have your students complete several math tasks with it. This pack focuses on graphing, sorting, tallying, ten frames, and addition!
I’ve been lucky enough to find the bags of “just magical marshmallows” at my local grocery store (HEB) for the past few years. If you can’t find the bags of marshmallows alone, it’s totally fine! I’ve done this activity with a regular box of Lucky Charms Cereal for several years and it’s always just as magical- students just pull out the cereal pieces, eat them, and work with the marshmallow shapes instead.
Pot O’ Gold Math Craftivity
Such an easy craftivity that can be used in several different ways! This craftivity comes with 3 math focus options: place value, balancing equations, and comparing numbers. Pair this activity with different types of dice to differentiate it!
March Word Work for Any Word List
I like having several word work options in my word work center, and I love being able to put out a festive option each month! This Holiday Word Work for Any Word List can be found HERE and it can be used with phonics pattern words, sight words, word wall words, or whatever words your students are currently working with!
You can read more about how I run literacy centers HERE.
March Color By Codes
Color by Codes are so much fun, and they are a great way to review phonics and math concepts! Use these as independent practice, fast finisher activities (I keep mine in a “busy bin” for students to grab when they have nothing else to do after finishing their work), morning work, or leave them with a sub!
March Print and Play Math Games
These are the lowest form of low-prep! Just print and play! You can print these fun math games and let students play them with crayons/markers, or you can put them into dry erase pockets so they can play them over and over. There are many different math skills in this set that are perfect for students to work on daily. I keep a stack of these math games in my math game center for students to play each day.
March Positive Behavior Notes
I love sending home positive behavior notes with deserving students each day! I keep a stack of these on my desk, and when I see a student go “above and beyond” I’ll write their name at the top of the note, sign my name at the bottom, and tape a little Starburst candy to the top for them to bring home to show their families. This is such a quick and easy way to make a positive connection between school and home.
Shape Leprechaun Math Craft
Isn’t he cuuuute?! This is a great activity for students to recognize and count 2D shapes! I love how they somehow always turn out slightly different when students do them and put their own spin on them.
Behavior Incentive Charts
No matter how amazing your classroom management is, students will start to get antsy for many reasons around the Spring Break time. Hey, I even start to get antsy myself!
These Project and Trace (or print) charts are perfect ways to keep students on track. Each time students have a great transition, are all on task, etc., I’ll add a picture piece to the chart. When students earn all the pieces, they get a reward/treat. Rewards/treats can be as simple as earning an extra recess, having a dance party, or getting a little chocolate Hershey’s Kiss to munch on while they are working. Simple and fun!
I also love leaving these charts for a sub because it helps to remind students to stay on track with the expectations I’ve set for them.
March Math Around the Room
This is another low-prep math center that you can use any time in March. It covers 22 math concepts so you can use it no matter what you are teaching or reviewing! Just print and cut your cards, tape them around the room, and give students a recording sheet so that they can go around and “hunt” for their answers.
Visit from Tricky the Leprechaun & Leprechaun Traps
I saved my favorite for last! Kinder and First Grade are pretty much the only two years that you can get all of your students on board with the “look what the leprechaun did” act! I’m not one for making a huge mess and saying the leprechaun did it, but I am all for leaving 17 little tricks behind in our classroom for students to find throughout the day.
The day before St. Patrick’s Day (or week before, if we are on Spring Break during St. Patrick’s Day), we read How to Trap a Leprechaun and we set traps. I give students a variety of random materials to do this (cups, yarn, paper clips, glue, tape, markers ,etc.). They use the Leprechaun Flip Book Linked HERE to write down their materials, write about their ideas, sketch their design, and finally make a “how-to” writing for trapping a leprechaun. Students are always surprised when they return to school and find out that the leprechaun cleared their traps, but left tiny foot prints on their desks along with 17 tricks for them to find throughout the day!
I make leprechaun footprints by dipping my fingers in green tempera paint and running them across the desk. Tempera Paint washes off of desks with baby wipes, so it’s an easy clean up later. I also sprinkle green confetti on desks also. Students love saving the magic confetti to show their families when they get home!
The 17 leprechaun tricks are super easy things to do like: flip the number 17 upside down on the calendar, write the date in “leprechaun handwriting”, tape a picture of a leprechaun to our class picture, etc. I give students a piece of paper and as the day goes on, they can write down the different tricks they notice around the room. So fun!! You can find my freebie list of tricks in the exclusive freebie library of sweetfirstiefun.com when you sign up for the Firstie Fam and get the password!
I hope you’ve grabbed a few fun ideas to bring with you into the month of March! Let me know if you try any of them, I’d love to hear from you!
