What does Saint Patrick's Day celebrate?
Saint Patrick's Day celebrates a Christian Saint named Patrick. Patrick was a missionary who helped to bring Christianity to Ireland. He is the patron saint of Ireland.
In the United States the day generally celebrates Irish-American culture and heritage.
When is Saint Patrick's Day celebrated?
Who celebrates this day?
The day is celebrated as a religious holiday by the Catholic Church. It is also celebrated in Ireland and by Irish people around the world. Many non-Irish join in the celebrations in many places, especially in the United States. It is a public holiday in Ireland.
History of Saint Patrick's Day
St. Patrick was a missionary to Ireland in the 5th century. There are many legends and tales about how he brought Christianity to the island including how he used the shamrock to explain the Christian trinity. It is believed he died on March 17, 461.
Hundreds of years later, around the 9th century, people in Ireland began celebrating the Feast of St. Patrick on March 17th each year. This holiday continued as a serious religious holiday in Ireland for hundreds of years.
In the 1700s the holiday began to become popular with Irish-Americans wanting to celebrate their heritage. The first St. Patrick's Day parade was held on March 17, 1762 in New York City.
What do people do to celebrate?
There are a number of traditions and ways to celebrate this day. For many years the day was celebrated as a religious holiday. People in Ireland and other areas of the world went to church services to celebrate. Many people still celebrate the day this way.
There are also lots of festivals and parades on this day to celebrate Irish culture. Most major cities have some sort of St. Patrick's Day parade. The city of Chicago has a fun custom where they dye the Chicago River green each year.
Probably the main way to celebrate St. Patrick's is to wear green. Green is the main color and symbol of the day. People not only wear green, but they dye their food green. People eat all sorts of green foods such as green hot dogs, green cookies, green bread, and green drinks.
Other fun traditions of the holiday include the shamrock (three leafed clover plant), Irish music played with bagpipes, eating corned beef and cabbage, and leprechauns.
Saint Patrick's Day Activities!
- Go Green! - Come dressed in green
- Footprint four leaf clover craft
- Class display of a Pom Pom Rainbow leading into a pot of GOLD!
- Rainbow necklace
- Make Leprechaun hats
- Who Has THIS Letter? - Make 2 sets of 26 shamrock/clover shapes and program them with letters:
- Give out a shamrock to each student. Keep track of the letters you give out. From the second set, only have those letters in front of you, face down.
- Make up a rhyme such as: Letter, letter. Which shall it be? Who has the letter that's in front of me?
- Flip over a letter shamrock and the children who have that letter will let you know that they have it!
- You could also have multiples of many letters if you want to focus on specific letters. In this case, a few children would have the same letter.
VARIATION: This activity could be done for number recognition or color recognition as well.
- Coin Sorting (pretend coins or cut out of cupbaord)- In advance, precut pots (for pots of gold) and program them with numbers for the children to count the number of coins onto the appropriate numbers.
- Make green playdough
- Celtic Music - Play different types of Irish music (jigs, ballads, etc.) for the children to dance to. Suggest they dance to the tempo/speed of the song they hear. Add a "freeze dance" component by tell the children they need to freeze when the music stops.
- Irish Brown Bread – click link for reciepe: https://www.preschool-plan-it.com/st-patricks-day-activities.html