Planning a Saint Patrick's Day Party? Here's a great list of Saint Patrick's Day Party Ideas, for children of all ages.
Ohh the luck of the Irish is upon you, when you celebrate St. Patty's Day, along with all the Irish relatives, or non Irish folk, who simply love to laugh, sing and be merry. If you are wondering what type of Irish Party Games would suit your little lucky Leprechauns hopefully some of these ideas will tickle your fancy.
For starters, St. Patty's Day Falls on March 17th, and the parades, and celebrations last a whole week, so there's plenty to see and do, and planning a party can fall on any one of those days, but usually March 17th is the best. If you're planning on being in New York around St Patrick's Day, it's the best place to be, to catch the St. Patrick's Day Parade, for a grand time, don't miss it.
For your party..
Costume suggestions.
Request all your little guests, to wear green. Green top hats party hats are always a hit, you can usually get them at any dollar store, or party shop. Glittery Leprechaun hats, or even left over News Years Eve glitter hats can be decorated with a black buckle in the front. And, any Leprechaun suit would be appreciated.
Little girls could wear fairy costumes and wings. Magic and Fairies are apart of St. Patrick's Day, so it's all good.
For the Hostess Costume.
The Hostess always stands out! You are the leader and need to stand out. The hostess should always be dressed in green, and ready for fun. Or, you can dress up in a Fairy Dress with Wings. If the hostess wants to go in green, a green hat, green tights, big black buckle, green dress, or green body suit, black shoes, with a top coat, and a HUGE shamrock pinned on her jacket will let all the guests know who is the Hostess with the Mostess.
* You can also have Shamrock cut out for name tags, if the children don't know each other.
Props for your Saint Patrick's Party.
Pot o'gold, and how to make one.
Set by the door or anywhere, a pot o'gold. If you can't find a St. Patty's Day one, use a black cauldron form Halloween, and put a clover on it, and put some fake coins in it, or shiny objects, like gold dust. A bottle of dry gold sparkles would cover that, from any craft store. If you don't want to fill it, you can always stuff it with gold material, and just sprinkle what ever you have on the top.
Large Flowers.
You can buy 4 to 5 foot tall flowers at any craft store. Or using a broom stick, or long wooden dowels, you can put tissue paper on the top, cutting out petals and sticking with tape or glue. Fill in with silk leaves, or cut leaf shapes from construction paper, or poster cardboard, the stiffer the better.
Paper Mache
You can also paper mache giant mushrooms, lilly pads, ladybugs, shamrocks, blarney stones.
Butterflies
Hanging a butterfly mobile would work great, or you can put pics of butterfles on the windows or walls.
* If you are having an Easter Party, you can use these for that too, and it would work great.
* Think big, the bigger the more magical.
*You can also buy scene pictures that are made out of plastic, anywhere that sells party supplies, like party plates, cups, candles ect.
Lights.
Green lights in the corners. Black lights over the dance floor. Soft white lights along the base of large flowers, windows, or arch ways. Green streams of lights would look great to.
Garden Gnomes.
Using garden gnomes are great accessories to, for decorating.
Rainbows work perfectly.
Rainbows on the walls, a bow of coloured paper would do, with puffs of cotton floating from the ceiling, (hanging by string).
Fake Grass Cover for Floor.
If you have a fake green grass carpet, it would go great in a basement, for the floor of your party, and you can set the gnomes around it.
Fairies are Irish.
If you love fairies, than you can have fairies for the plate sets, put fairy dolls around, and anything that's magical, will suit.
Wishing Jar.
You can put a fairy sticker, or put a fairy doll on the lid, or paint a fairy on the glass of the jar.
Scroll up soft pink, green or blue paper, very very tiny, and tie with a ribbon. You can add a few strands of shredded paper, looks like Easter grass, to sprinkle on the bottom of the jar, to add an added touch.
With a marker, or you can even make a label on your computer and print it out, put this message.
Irish Wishing Jar
Write your wish on the magical paper,
Scroll it up, and tie a ribbon round it.
Put it in the wishing jar
And your wish will come true.
* You can also scope out my Irish Blessings Articles and print some out, and if someone wants to give a blessing to a loved one, they can write their name on the back and put it in the jar.
Wishing Well
If you live with a carpenter, a wishing well would be a great party prop. You can put him to work, and get a little pot of gold inside it, if it's an adult Saint Patrick's Day Party, you could put the punch bowl in it, or make it a wishing well for the kids to toss toy coins in.
An Irish Blessing Tree.
Potted trees add green. Potted trees are a great decorating fun thing to do, you could hang shiny coins from the branches, or even golden Christmas decorations. Glitter with gold over green everywhere you can.
Play a Party Theme DvD.
For every party I have, I always make a dvd, with animations, and graphics, telling people all about the party, what's coming up, what activities are planned, and I put some groovy theme tunes to it. You can do that to, and play it while the guests are arriving. One thing I like to do, is have the story, or legend spelled out to the kids about the holiday, how it came to be, and a few funny things that are related to it.
Hire a Leprechaun Suit
And find someone to wear it. One year my mom made this really cool Leprechaun suit, and my dad wore it all the day long with his shelalie, and the kids along with the rest of the town went nuts over his amazing costume. If you can sew, and have someone brave enough to wear it, why not get your own Leprechaun to come and read the kids a story.
Read a story about Leprechauns.
If your little guests are preschool, or even school aged, they will love this. You can always get a book from the library, in this case a good one about Leprechauns, or St. Patty, and read it to the kids. That might be a good way to start off the party, and you can relate to the children why people celebrate St. Patty's Day, who Leprechauns are, and why this party is going to be such fun. Preschool children will also love these games, and it's a great way to entertain your students, if you are a teacher, who wants to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day with their students. I wreot an article all about Leprechaun's, and Saint Patrick's Day, and where to find them. If you are stumped for a book title, I'll leave you a link at the end of this article.
Party Game Number One.
1. A Leprechaun Trap.
Traditionally, the leprechaun is a sneaky little Irishman, who although is very witty, can't resist shiny objects. If you use shiny objects as bait, you just might catch yourself a Leprechauns.
Now why would we want to catch a Leprechaun, you will ask the children?
Because if you catch a Leprechaun, he will have to give you his pot'o gold.
Does anyone here know where a Leprechaun hides his pot'o gold?
That's right, at the end of the rainbow.
In order to catch a Leprechaun, you must plan it very carefully, and very secretively, and set the trap, on the eve of St. Patty's day. Since the kids are here now, we still have time to catch the lucky Leprechaun, but first we need to make the trap. Of course you will have a sample already made sitting on the table, set and ready. The instructions for making the Leprechaun Trap was too long to be in this article, so please see my article on, How to Make a Leprechaun Trap, for your St. Patty's Day Party. To get the list of supplies, and the how to tips on making it work just right.
While the traps are set, you can take the kids to the party room, and get everyone to sit on the floor in a circle.
2. Pass the Leprechaun Hat.
It's time to pass the Leprechaun hat. If your guests are old enough to read, this party game works great, if they aren't, you can get someone to sit with them who can help them. Now, this part takes prep work before the party. You can use my other articles on Leprechauns One liners, and print them out and cut them into little strips and put them in the hat. The hat is passed from child to child, and they get to ask the group riddles about the Leprechauns, who ever gets it right, gets a prize.
3. Do it yourself desert table.
My all time favourite is the do it yourself desert table. The day before, make a bunch of shortbread cookies, using cut-out of four leaf clovers, leprechauns, leprechaun hats, pot of gold, gold coins. If you can't find cut outs for St. Patty's day, just use ginger bread cut outs, and put a picture of a lucky leprechaun on the table.
One time for Halloween, I couldn't find my cutters, so I used gingerbread men, and put some pictures of trick-or-treaters, one Frankenstein, one Dracula, one Ghost, and I put the legs together on the cookie for the ghost, and the kids had a great time decorating the scary masks on the gingerbread men and didn't know the difference. You could do that for a Leprechaun to, and make the shape of the clover with your hands. You can also cook chocolate cookies, by adding some chocolate to your dough, or sometime I just use a chocolate cake mix and just add butter, makes good cookie dough, and cook them in chunks, to look like a stone. That makes for a great blarney stone all their own.
Anyway, you can use blank cupcakes, cookies, pieces of cakes, and have a few trays filled with green glitter for baking, green and yellow tubes of gel writing for cakes, squeeze bottles of frosting, in black, white, green, yellow and red for his hair. You can put gum drops, mini marshmallows, liquorice, and whatever you can find. Kids love to make their own treats, and will spend a lot of time working on their creations. I have a really cute rainbow jello recipe in my Great Great Great, St. Patty's Day recipes article that you might like.
4. Hire a Magic Leprechaun.
You could hire party entertainers, a magician dressed as a Leprechaun would be amazing. Or a Leprechaun that blows balloons, or instead of a clown doing funny tricks, as him to dress up like Leprechaun. It will be great fun.
5. Dance to Leprechaun Tunes.
For music, you can check out my article on Irish kids music, and I have some pretty aweomse free sites for mp3's, and you can have the kids dance to the lucky Leprechaun and freeze when the music stops.
6. Have an Irish Lunch.
If you are feeling in the mood, you could have a pot luck dinner, with some good Irish food for the kids to try out. If any moms want to bring their favourite Irish dish, the more the merrier. And have a good o'fashioned Irish dinner. If you want some good Irish recipes, my great-great-grandpa came from Ireland, and my Grandma had some recipes that you can check out in my St. Patty's Day recipe article.
7. Hire a Step Dance Teacher.
You could get the kids to try out step dancing, and doing the jig, if anyone you know teaches it, that's a benefit. Of you could hire a teacher for a half hour or so.
Decorating your home for the party. (a few more suggestions)
Stock up on Clovers.
Lots of green leaf clover cut outs hanging, in a streamer from ceiling. Clovers on walls, windows, Leprechaun pics on windows.
Spread Green Cheer.
Have green table cloth and sprinkle St. Patty's day confetti over it. Fill the house with as much green, and as many different tones of green as you can. Cover the sofa with green, put clover cut-outs on the floor where the kids can walk on them like a bread trail.
Lots of Shine and Sparkles.
Don't forget the shiny objects. The more glittery gold you set around in your theme the more magical your party will look.
Rainbow Mobile.
You could make a mobile that has a rainbow on the top, and hang cut outs of four leaf clovers, pots of gold, and hang it from the ceiling.
Check out your local Party Shop.
Go to your local party shop and see what new and exciting St. Patty's day decorations they have, cups, mugs, plates, streamers, glow sticks, little head bands with flashing lights on the four leaf clovers, and stock up.
Saint Patrick's Day Signs.
It's good to have a Happy St. Patty's Day sign, and a Top O' The Morning to ye, sign on the door for them to see when they come in.
Irish Flag.
Orange White and Green, theme colours.
An Irish Flag would be a good idea to, you can get mini ones at any flag shop, or you can make your own with construction paper, and straws, or just make one and put it on the wall for a decoration.
Don't forget to check the traps.
Make sure you remind yourself that they need to check the traps. Put a note to yourself on the door if you have to. Nothing would be sadder, if you all got tired out, and out of sight out of mind, you forget the traps are there. After the kids are all played out, and before anyone starts to go home, it's time to remind them of their leprechaun traps, it's time to see if anyone's caught a leprechaun. The kids will be amazed how sneaky that little Leprechauns was, when he's left them a shiny chocolate treat, in their trap.
For an added touch.
To take it one step further, if you have access to a cane, or crooked shelalie, set it against the wall, and the kids will see he left his cane behind, and will be back next year to collect it.
Here's the link on how to make a Leprechaun Trap.
Also, if you are looking for a great book, on catching leprechauns, here's a list of some of the best, that you can read at your party.
Have a Super Happy St. Patty's Day me Lads and Lassies.
By: Sacreeta
