9 St. Patrick's Day writing ideas and activities for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms

9 St. Patrick’s Day Writing Ideas & Activities

9 St. Patrick's Day writing ideas and activities for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms
Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with your 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade students while sneaking in some fun writing practice with one of the 9 ideas below. It's a win-win for students and teachers!

1. Write a Limerick

St. Patrick's Day is an ideal time to teach your upper elementary students about limericks. This fun poem is believed to be named after Limerick, a city in western Ireland. Limericks are supposed to be humorous, making them an engaging introduction to poetry. 

Writing a limerick can feel intimidating, however. Students will benefit from a lot of examples and scaffolding. This No Prep Limerick Resource includes lots of silly limericks, step-by-step instructions, and scaffolded worksheets so your students can practice reading and writing limericks. Plus, it has a reading passage about the invention of limericks with some test prep questions!

Celebrate St. Patrick's Day with your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students by writing limericks together.

2. St. Patrick's Day Words to Write a St. Patrick's Day Story

Provide your students with a list of St. Patty's Day - themed words and have them integrate all of the words into their own story! This is a good way to get a little vocabulary building in as well. You can give students words like:

  • shamrock
  • leprechaun
  • green
  • fortunate
  • mischief
  • tradition
  • legend

3. St. Patrick's Day Opinion Writing

3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students can always benefit from more opinion writing practice. Take advantage of St. Patrick's Day and give students an opinion writing prompt that will engage them.

Possible St. Patty's Day Opinion Writing Prompts:

  • Do you think pinching others for not wearing green on St. Patrick's Day is a good tradition? Why or why not?
  • Would a leprechaun make a good friend? Why or why not?
  • What is the best green food?

These tips for teaching opinion writing will help your students write a successful opinion writing essay.

4. Pot of Gold Writing Prompt

For a fun and no prep writing prompt, ask your upper elementary students to explain what they would do if they found a pot of gold! Use this free template from The Pedagogical Planner to make a bulletin board display to go along with this writing prompt.

5. Compare and Contrast Luck and Hard Work

St. Patrick's Day and four-leaf clovers are often associated with luck. Have students think more critically about luck by comparing and contrasting it to hard work. Use these compare and contrast paragraph frames and sentence starters to help scaffold student writing.

6. An Edible How-To St. Patty's Day Writing Activity

Food makes everything more fun! As a class, make one of these edible St. Patrick's Day treats:

Then, have your students write a how-to paper that provides instructions on how to make the edible treat.

7. St. Patrick's Day Squiggle Story

Squiggle stories are a fun, no prep writing idea that 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students love.

To write a squiggle story, give students a sheet of paper with a random squiggle on it.  They create a St. Patrick's Day drawing that incorporates that squiggle.  Then, they write a short story based on their drawing.

This no prep resource includes plenty of squiggles and "prompts" to help direct students' writing.  And best of all, it can be used all year, not just for St. Patrick's Day.

8. Lucky or Unlucky

Another no prep writing prompt - have students think about a time that they felt either really lucky or really unlucky, and then describe that time.

9. How to Catch a Leprechaun

This writing prompt goes along with the fun children's book, How to Catch a Leprechaun. Spark your 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students' imaginations with the book, then have them come up with their own ideas for trapping a leprechaun. They can describe their trap in a short how-to paper.
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12/21/2024 10:29 am GMT

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