Finding a quality middle school St. Patrick’s Day lesson can be a challenge. I see lots of really cute St. Patrick’s Day activities online for elementary school students, but not for middle school students. While lesson plans focused around leprechauns and shamrocks are fairly common, rigorous plans for middle school students are significantly less so.
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No matter where you live, helping students build background knowledge and understanding of world cultures is an important goal no matter where they are from. I use the Article of the Week format to help my students build their background knowledge. To help with this knowledge building, you can use this middle school St. Patrick’s Day lesson plan that is focused on a non-fiction article. In it, students will learn what St. Patrick’s Day is as well as this interesting holiday’s history and traditions.
To help with this knowledge building, you can use this middle school St. Patrick’s Day lesson plan that is focused on a non-fiction article. In it, students will learn what St. Patrick’s Day is as well as this interesting holiday’s history and traditions.
What is St. Patrick’s Day?
Depending on where you live, you may or may not be very familiar with St. Patrick’s Day. It was originally a Catholic feast day celebrated, especially in Ireland, on March 17th, the death date of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland.
This holiday has since become much more prevalent and secular, but still celebrates the culture and heritage of the Irish with parades, decorative shamrocks, leprechauns, and green everything. Canada held its first St. Patrick’s Day parade in Montreal in 1824.
One of the traditions of Chicago is to dye the Chicago River green – this started in 1962 and continues to this day, although rather than the river staying green for a week, it’s only green for a few hours. Another tradition is eating corned beef and cabbage.
St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated all over the world, and people often commemorate the day by wearing green. It is said that if you don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, you risk getting pinched by a leprechaun!
Middle School St. Patrick’s Day Lesson
This middle school St. Patrick’s Day lesson contains one nonfiction article and three post-reading activities to assist with reading comprehension, standardized test prep (EQAO), and cross-curricular learning. It comes in both PDF and digital formats to help teachers who are teaching both in the physical and digital classroom. Find this resource on Shopify CAD or Teachers Pay Teachers USD.
Resource Includes:
- Teacher lesson plan
- Pre-reading K-W-L chart
- Non-fiction article (regular and modified texts)
- Mp3 audio files of each reading
- 3 Post-reading activities: comprehension questions, grammar questions (2 options: paper and self-grading Google Forms), long answer writing response
- Individual PDFs of student pages to assist with online learning i.e. Google Classroom
- Google Slides formatted lessons for 1:1 school
St. Patrick’s Day Picture Books
Picture books are a great way to start a St. Patrick’s Day lesson. Your school library might even have a display closer to the day for kids to choose from. Here are a few St. Patrick’s Day picture books to get you started:
- How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace
- Ten Lucky Leprechauns by Kathryn Heling
- The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day by Natasha Wing
St. Patrick’s Day Video
If you are looking for a quick video about this holiday. Check out this video from PBS.
Podcast Lessons
Here are two Podcast Listening Comprehension Lessons you can use with students when teaching St. Patrick’s Day. These don’t deal with the holiday specifically, but more with the consumerism that coincides with many holidays.
- Podcast Listening Comprehension Lesson – Online Orders
- Podcast Listening Comprehension Lesson – Dollar Store Prices
Sub Plans
If you celebrate holidays in your classroom, you might know one thing that is usually prominent: sugar! My sub-plan lesson on the Effects of Sugar is a great way to provide insight to students on what happens to the body when it consumes sugar.
And with celebrations usually come parties! My sub-plan lesson on Party Planning delves into the waste that is created during celebrations.
Other Lesson Plans
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