5 St. Patrick's Day Read Alouds and STEM Challenges
The following is a guest post from Dr. Jacie Maslyk.
As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, it is time to gather our books and plan for some fun STEM challenges. Using books from a similar theme like a holiday or special time of year can be a great way to engage learners in STEM.
Top 5 St. Patrick’s Day Read Aloud Books for Kids:
How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace
Fiona’s Luck by Teresa Bateman
The Story of the Leprechaun by Katherine Tegen
The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow by Sean Callahan
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover by Lucille Colandro
In addition to the story summary, we will offer a few STEM ideas for your students.
1. How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace
This fun rhyming story tells the tale of the leprechaun visit as St. Patrick’s Day approaches. By tapping his hammer, throwing glitter around, and making a general mess, the leprechaun plays lots of tricks.
At different houses, various traps are set but the little leprechaun escapes each one from mousetraps, boxes, and cages, nothing can stop the leprechaun. Even an intricately engineered Rube Goldberg-like device cannot catch him!
The story ends with a call to action-- that only a brilliant child will design the perfect trap. Students will step up to this challenge, ready to design a way to trap the sneaky leprechaun.
Challenge:
The How to Catch a Leprechaun STEM Challenge will teach students to write a step by step plan. They will use the Engineering Design Process to tackle this problem, leading to the construction of a trap to catch a leprechaun. This project also works as a companion activity to How to Trap a Leprechaun by Sue Fliess.
2. Fiona’s Luck by Teresa Bateman
With all the luck in Ireland taken away by the leprechauns Fiona might find a way to get it back. She devises a plan to trick the leprechauns and return the luck to the people. This imaginative story offers opportunities for creative thinking and design. Students can even do a little research and exploration.
Challenge:
In the story, leprechauns are described as much smaller than “big folk”. Students can design a home for a leprechaun thinking about the scale needed for a smaller character. With smart planning and careful construction, students can create miniature items that the leprechaun could use.
Our March Read Aloud Menu features the story Fiona’s Luck and offers seven other STEM activities and design tasks connected to this book. The menus also include activities for other books to use this month.
3. The Story of the Leprechaun by Katherine Tegen
The story begins in a faraway village. A little shoemaker (who also happens to be a leprechaun) makes money (in the form of gold) from his shoes. He keeps the gold that he earns hidden in his house. He thinks it will be safe there, but one day someone tries to steal it!
Leprechauns are known to be tricky, but in this story, the leprechaun hid the gold in his cupboard. Your students will be excited to generate ideas for new and better hiding places.
Challenge:
In our Leprechaun Tower Challenge, students will design and construct a tower that can hide the gold from those who are trying to steal it. Teams can work together to create a tall tower using simple materials. They might even add another dimension to their design and incorporate a mechanism to prevent the gold from being taken, if by chance someone can climb the tower.
4. The Leprechaun Who Lost His Rainbow by Sean Callahan
As Colleen and her grandfather prepare for the St. Patrick’s Day parade, her grandfather shares a story from his past. It looks like rain might ruin the parade. Colleen soon meets a leprechaun who needs items from every color of the rainbow. He needs help to build a rainbow so that he can find his pot of gold. Colleen helps him to find all of the items needed. When the rainbow is built, the rain stops and a rainbow appears.
Challenge:
Students can construct their own rainbow in the Rainbow Bridge Challenge. Students will use plastic straws of different colors to build a bridge with a goal of building for strength. Using the engineering design process, students will ask, imagine, plan, create, experiment, and improve as they build a rainbow bridge to hold the most weight..
5. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Clover by Lucille Colandro
This is the familiar story of the old lady who swallows lots of things. In this St. Patrick’s Day theme book, she swallows a clover. After she swallows the clover, she goes on to swallow a daisy, a butterfly, and a bird. Then she gobbles up a pot, some gold, and lastly a fiddle.Once she downs all of those colorful items, everything comes out of her and a rainbow is formed.
Challenge:
Students can retell the tale of the old lady and all of the things that she swallows using robotics. With Ozobots or other robots, students can map the path that the story took with the old lady swallowing each item. This activity can help students build some basic coding skills.
You can also offer your students an unplugged coding challenge.
No robots are required for this St. Patrick's Day Coding Challenge. Students can work together to create different codes to help the leprechaun collect his lucky charms.
Every activity and solution is unique as students create their own board and code by moving the start point, obstacles, and end points on their coding sheets.It is a fun and unique way to engage your students in a March-themed center or for a St. Patrick's Day Party!
We know that books are a great way to engage our students.
We can use themed stories as classroom read alouds but also as an instructional strategy to jump start engineering design challenges. STEM challenges connected to great books can inspire students and push their thinking as they design and create new things.
Have more questions or need additional resources?
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An educator for the last 23 years, Dr. Jacie Maslyk, has served as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, elementary principal, and assistant superintendent. She is the author of STEAM Makers: Fostering Creativity and Innovation in the Elementary Classroom, Connect to Lead: Power Up Your Learning Network to Move Your School Forward (ISTE), Remaking Literacy: Innovative Instructional Strategies for Maker Learning and Unlock Creativity: Opening a World of Imagination With Your Students. You can read more on her blog, Creativity in the Making, at www.jaciemaslyk.blogspot.com. Connect with Jacie on Twitter @DrJacieMaslyk or email her at jaciemaslyk@gmail.com .