March is a magical month full of St. Patrick’s Day celebrations with pots of gold, leprechauns, and of course, rainbows! The seven rainbow colors symbolize hope and luck– perfect for this special holiday. Use these seven engaging and educational rainbow-themed St. Patrick’s Day ideas to help you celebrate a memorable month with your class family!
Promote a Positive Class Community During March
Each one of the seven rainbow-themed activities serves one of two main purposes:
- to provide an engaging academic learning opportunity
- to help build and strengthen classroom community
And a few of these fun, rainbow-themed activities can accomplish both! They encourage student growth both academically and socially.
7 Rainbow-Themed Ideas for March:
- Rainbow Read Alouds
- St. Patrick’s Day Class Family Friday
- STEM Rainbow Activity
- Rainbow Writing & Roll and Write
- Rainbow Scavenger Hunt
- Rainbow-themed Jenga Games
- Shades of Meaning Rainbow Writing Craftivity
Idea 1: Rainbow Read Alouds
Start off by setting the stage for March by reading aloud any of these rainbow-themed children’s books to your students (*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases).
A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman
Don Freeman writes the story of a little boy searching for a rainbow of his own. While on his adventure, the boy discovers that he can find magic in unexpected places. This classic picture book is a wonderful way to spark imagination within your students.
How the Crayons Saved the Rainbow by Monica Sweeney
This brightly delightful story teaches the importance of teamwork and determination. Each of the seven crayons has a uniquely individual personality, but all have the common goal of bringing color into the world.
Collaboration Station
Another read aloud geared toward teamwork, specifically in the classroom! This is a brand new book that will be released this spring. Rainbow swirls are woven throughout every whimsical illustration, and the text will help get students in the best mindset for working together in partners, small groups, and as a whole class family.
Idea 2: St. Patrick’s Day Class Family Friday
Class Family Friday (or Class Family Fun Day!) is a “special edition” type of Morning Meeting for weekly classroom community building. It is something your class can look forward to every Friday, or any other day of the week you choose.
This is a time to get cozy with your class. Have everyone start by sitting in a circle on the carpet or rug. Then simply display the slides for the week, which are all ready to go for you! Use the slides to help guide the rest.
There are editable slide decks for every week of the school year, plus special bonus slides that are themed for seasons and holidays (including St. Patrick’s Day)!
The St. Patrick’s Day themed slide deck includes a fun Rainbow Relay activity for your students to complete in teams.
A little bit of friendly competition is a fun and healthy way to build those positive student relationships.
Idea 3: STEM Rainbow Activity
Engage your students creatively and mathematically with this FREE STEM rainbow activity by Creatively Teaching First.
Students complete math problems to earn colored cereal pieces which they use to create a rainbow of their own.
They can practice writing skills by reflecting on this STEM challenge using the reflection pages that are included in this resource.
Idea 4: Rainbow Writing & Roll and Write
Transform word practice into an engaging, colorful experience with this Rainbow Writing & Roll and Write activity.
Students use dice and word lists to practice spelling, writing, and reading. Spelling words, high-frequency words, and sight words great word list options to use.
This activity is perfect to use in a Word Work Station!
*You can find this rainbow word work resource in my website shop, or also in my TPT store.
Idea 5: Rainbow Scavenger Hunt
It’s just like it sounds. Take your students on a rainbow scavenger hunt- either inside the classroom, or venture outside onto the playground!
Divide students into partners or teams, and encourage them to find as many items as they can that match each color of the rainbow.
At the end, have each team share out with the whole class what they found, or you could even turn it into a writing activity!
Idea 6: Rainbow Jenga Games
Games are always a surefire way to make learning more fun and exciting, AND to teach students important social skills!
Jenga is a go-to favorite for any time of the school year, and March is no different! Use rainbow-like colorful Jenga pieces and a themed set of cards and answer sheets for an extra St. Patrick’s Day twist.
Lucky Jenga is a math game with a St. Patrick’s Day theme. It focuses on problem-solving and word problems for 0-20 addition and subtraction facts.
Shades of Meaning Jenga provides engaging practice with an important grammar skill and is great for vocabulary development.
Both games (Lucky Jenga and Shades of Meaning) are also available in the Life Between Summers shop here on my website.
Idea 7: Rainbow Writing Craftivity
Pair this final rainbow-themed activity with the Shades of Meaning game above:
With this Shades of Meaning Rainbow Writing Craftivity, students analyze synonyms and put them in order from weakest to strongest based on their shades of meaning. They record the results of their word sort on their cloud and rainbow craft.
Not only does this writing craft help with reading comprehension and vocabulary, but it also makes for a beautifully bright display when you hang up all of your students’ rainbows in the classroom!
If you’d like more ideas for teaching shades of meaning, I’d definitely recommend checking out this blog post too!
Hope you lucked out in finding one (or more!) rainbow-themed St. Patrick’s Day idea that you can incorporate into your classroom this March. Thanks to you, your students will keep on shining bright this school year!
