Where Play Meets Potential
You may feel more lethargic than lucky with a busy toddler running around, but don’t fret I am bringing you 8 gold coin activities to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with your little leprechaun. These activities are developmentally appropriate for 1 to 5 year olds and are super easy to recreate.
I love to celebrate holidays with some themed play. I also love to create unique play ideas, while saving a buck or two. So for St. Patrick’s Day, we are maximizing the use of gold coins with several ways to play. Take a look and try one or all of these St. Patrick’s Day gold coin activities for toddlers.
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In preparation for the St. Patrick’s Day holiday, I bought some amazing green sensory mix from Play at Home Mom Co. I love her store and her sensory kits! One awesome thing about the green sensory mix is that it comes with a resealable bag and can be used beyond St. Patrick’s Day (I’m looking forward to some Easter sensory play with it too).
My mom recently gave me this little wooden treasure chest and I thought it was perfect for some St. Patrick’s Day gold coin sensory play.
So, this setup was super easy! First, I dumped in the green sensory mix. Then I added the gold coins, treasure chest, black cauldrons, and some scoops. Boom! Done in less than 5 minutes.
Surprisingly, Ruby did not dump the dry material everywhere. This St. Patrick’s Day gold coin activity was perfect for scooping and pouring practice. And, bonus, I was able to leave it out for her to come back to again and again.
Oh, and of course in Ruby fashion, she had to show her stuffed kitty all the fun.
For some more sensory play, we took the St. Patrick’s Day gold coins and put them in some festive green water. Then, I added some pots and pouring materials and let my toddler pour away.
We are huge fans of water play in this household. Check out my post “50+ Water Play Ideas” for more water play inspiration. Water play is so versatile, calming, and engaging. The only thing to remember is that there might be some mess to clean up or some clothes that need to be changed afterwards.
If you took a look at our Simple Valentine’s Day Activities for Toddlers you might have seen us do a similar activity with hearts. This was such a hit, we decided to try again with some St. Patrick’s Day gold coins.
This time I used a recycled container and simply cut a little slit on the lid. The small slit made a challenge for Ruby’s fine motor skill and coordination. I had to help her a bit, but after one demonstration, she was able to squeeze the gold coins into the slit.
Since she had experience getting the hearts from the sponge, she quickly was able to retrieve all the gold coins. The posting was the real fine motor challenge in this activity.
Using gold coins for a simple drawing provocation allows toddlers to have a target for their drawing. You can also begin talking about circles.
I added the shamrocks for extra St. Patrick’s day flair, but you can skip them if you want. We also used some Crayola metallic crayons and that added a little sparkle to the drawing.
At 12 months, toddlers begin developing their fine motor muscles and coordination. During this stage of development toddlers will simply be exploring the tools and cause and effect relationship of mark making.
Make sure you watch them with crayons because they still may be mouthing. You could also try this activity with paintbrushes and water or edible paint.
Around 15 to 18 months children begin to make random marks and “drawing” is more about enjoyment of the process, exploring tools, and cause and effect rather than intentional mark making.
They may not even notice the gold coins at this stage, but you can still use them to model and discuss circles. Show them going around and around the coin.
Then around 2 years old your child’s scribbles become more consolidated and purposeful. You will begin to see horizontal and vertical lines, loops and spirals, and rough circles.
So around this age this activity will be perfect for talking about all the circles they are making on the paper. You can also model tracing around the gold coin to make a circle.
Scribbles become even more purposeful at 3 and 4 years. You will begin to see basic shapes. Children this age will name their drawings even if they don’t necessarily look like anything. Their first drawing of people will emerge at this stage also.
At this stage, children will really enjoy drawing the gold. They may add other specific things to their drawing like a pot of gold, rainbow, or leprechaun.
For the children who are older or interested in numbers and counting, then using the gold coins as counters can make for a fun way to incorporate learning into your St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
There are a few ways to set up a provocation to count using the gold coins. You can put numbers on shamrocks and have them line up the corresponding quantity or you can put numbers on pots of gold for them to drop in the amount of gold coins to match the number.
For Valentine’s Day, I decided to set up some themed climbing activities. Since those were so much fun, I decided to do another for St. Patrick’s Day.
For this St. Patrick’s Day gold coin activity, I taped the gold coins on the rungs of the Pikler and then I taped pots on the wall at the top of the triangle. I modeled how to pull the coins off and then put them into the pots.
This challenges both fine and gross motor skills. So much balance and coordination are happening, which I love when I can get her whole body involved in the activity.
We are huge fans of the Pikler triangle here in our house. This climbing structure gets used daily. Not only does it get used for climbing, but we have used it for activities beyond climbing too (find those activities HERE).
If you are looking for a really great quality foldable pikler, we love ours and I highly recommend it! Head over to Simre Home Living on Etsy to get yours within days.
Who doesn’t love a good whack with a hammer? This activity is perfect for toddlers. It involves hitting with a hammer, edible sensory play, and surprises. How fun!
To set up this activity I put some gold coins, peas, and water into an ice tray and froze overnight. Then I presented the frozen peas and coins with a hammer and let Ruby explore. She soon discovered there were coins inside and was eager to crack open the frozen peas. She also enjoyed eating the peas too.
The green color of the peas adds a little extra St. Patrick’s Day flair to this gold coin activity. Its edible nature is also a bonus! Make sure you check out my other edible play ideas if you have little ones that love to put everything in their mouth.
For this St. Patrick’s Day gold coin activity, I used the playdough from a Play at Home Mom Co. play dough kit. It was perfect because it was yellow and rolled in glitter. It looked like gold!
You don’t need to buy the kit for the play dough, but the kit we bought is perfect for toddlers and has lots of materials for threading and stacking. So, that is a nice bonus, but you could also buy play dough alone or make your own.
I hid some gold coins in the play dough and offered with some tweezers. When Ruby came to the table for this activity, she went straight for the play dough. Then the tweezers also kept her interest. If only she could keep the play dough out of her mouth.
This activity is perfect for working those small hand muscles needed for so many important life skills. Fine motor skills are crucial for eating, drawing, writing, zipping, buttoning, opening containers, and more.
Play at Home Mom Co. has so many great kits that are loosely themed in fun ways like Blippi, princesses, unicorns, and construction. Stop into her store to see all her options.
Click the pictures below to take you to the products.
I seriously had so much fun thinking up and putting together these festive St. Patrick’s Day gold coin activities. I hope you have found something inspiring and you try some out.
May you have all the happiness
and luck that life can hold—
And at the end of all your rainbows
may you find a pot of gold.
I love to see others in action with our ideas. Be sure to tag us on social media so I can see your take on these activities.
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Does the play dough go moldy.
Play dough keeps for a few months if kept in an airtight container. I have never experienced mold with play dough, but I usually toss it after a few months of play because of bacteria that could grow on it just from playing with it.
2 thoughts on “8 St. Patrick’s Day Gold Coin Activities for Toddlers”
Does the play dough go moldy.
Play dough keeps for a few months if kept in an airtight container. I have never experienced mold with play dough, but I usually toss it after a few months of play because of bacteria that could grow on it just from playing with it.