Irish and non-Irish people alike celebrate St. Patrick’s Day each March with parades, colorful clothing, and other fun traditions. You can capitalize on the holiday interest with your students by creating St. Patrick’s Day lesson plans for any classroom. Add these primary sources and engagement activities to your lessons to pique students’ interest and start discussions around holiday topics.

• 3 fun St. Patrick’s Day challenges to boost engagement
• 2 Irish primary sources to spark discussion

[3 fun St. Patrick’s Day challenges to boost engagement](id-challenge)

Bring some excitement into your classroom while building background knowledge and practicing skills this St. Patrick’s Day with activities designed to increase students’ engagement in their lessons.

1. Take the St. Patrick’s Day challenge

How much do your students know about the history and traditions of St. Patrick’s Day? Test their knowledge with a fun and challenging trivia activity. For an extra challenge, have students complete the activity before and after learning about the holiday and compare their scores to see how much they learned.

2. Try a St. Patrick’s Day ELA bell ringer

Bring St. Patrick’s Day activities into ELA classrooms with a bell ringer activity. Students can read a short passage on St. Patrick’s Day and use editing marks to correct mistakes. Students can look for capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors.

3. Practice reading comprehension with St. Patrick’s Day texts

Students in grades 3-5 can practice reading comprehension with a text on the symbols of St. Patrick’s Day. Ask students to read the passage and answer the comprehension questions in Formative. 

Want to take the activity offline? Teachers with Formative Paid Teacher and School & District plans can print activities for students to complete off the screen.

[2 Irish primary sources to spark discussion](id-source)

Teach students about the history of Irish American culture by exploring primary sources to spark history-based classroom discussions. For teachers with both Formative and Newsela Social Studies, you can pair these activities with differentiated leveled texts to share the texts with all students, regardless of reading level.

Meet the first immigrants who arrived at Ellis Island

Ellis Island officially opened on January 1, 1892, as the new immigration processing center in New York Harbor. Students can read about Annie Moore, a young Irish girl who was the first passenger processed through the new station. Then, they can complete the Formative activity to answer questions about what they learned.

Discover the realities of the Irish Potato Famine

In 1845, a terrible fungus outbreak caused potato crops across Europe, especially in Ireland. Without crops, many Irish people lost their businesses, had to find new homes, or succumbed to widespread starvation.

Students can read a firsthand account of the devastation the Irish Potato Famine caused in the village of Skibbereen. Then, they can complete the Formative activity to test their comprehension of the primary source.

What else will you teach and assess with Formative?

The Formative Library isn’t just for holiday content! It has a variety of pre-made activities developed by our curriculum experts and educators like you. You can use these templates as-is or customize them to fit your instructional needs. 

Use the library’s sort filters to browse content by subject and grade level to find what you want. Create your own if you don’t see a template that matches your instructional needs!

‍Log into your Formative account and choose how to customize your lessons, assessments, or practice sets. You can create new slides with various multimedia, including audio and video. You can also import content from Google, enhance a PDF or existing document, or import any .CSV or .TSV file to create a practice set.

Don’t have a Formative account yet? Sign up for Formative for free today and start creating activities for St. Patrick’s Day and beyond!