Super Lucky Shamrock: A Fun and Easy Saint Patrick's Day Art Activity

Yesterday was a snow day for the girls, which means that this Mom had to find a few ways to keep them entertained so that I could get some work done. Both girls really enjoy art activities, so I dug deep in my half-caffeinated mind and thought of shamrocks. Real original, right? More specifically, I was thinking of 4-leaf clovers and how they are considered lucky, and an idea hit me!

See a Penny, Pick it Up.....

What else is something people consider lucky? Pennies! After finding a printable template for a 4-leaf clover, the next task was to find at least 100 pennies. I wasn't sure if the project would require that many, but I wanted to make sure we had plenty. We collected pennies from the change jar and piggy banks until we had (more than) enough and then went on to the next step.

Artsy with a Mix of Math

I was a little worried that this art project might not be too appealing to the girls, especially my 10 year old, D. I did my best to make it as interesting as I could, by adding in a math lesson. We looked at our 4-leaf clovers and estimated how many pennies we would need for each one. Once our guess was made, we filled in the first leaf, with R making sure to keep track of how many pennies were used. We then multiplied that number by the number of leaves on our shamrock and came up with the number of pennies we would need to fill in the whole shamrock. While our math was correct, we did end up using less pennies than we calculated because each leaf ended up requiring a different amount of pennies, go figure!

Seeing Green!

Once we filled our shamrock in with the pennies we carefully placed a piece of white paper over them and started the crayon rubbing. It might have gone a little easier if we had glued the pennies down to the shamrock at first, but all in all they came out pretty great. Now, we each have a super lucky shamrock (pennies and a 4-leaf clover).

What kind of art projects do you do with your kids for St. Patrick's Day? Seriously... we have another snow day today and I could use a few more ideas. Be sure to leave a comment!