St. Patrick's Day Crafts for Kids: Shamrock Insects

Shamrock Insects are great mini crafts for young children and even toddlers to introduce them to the symbols of St. Patrick's Day. Prepare a few examples so the kids can look at the visual, but then let them use their imagination. Do not make them stay within the rigid guidelines of the example. See what kind of insect the children develop on their own with this St. Patrick's Day craft activity.

Prepare a work space with newspaper or a plastic table cloth and put small children in craft aprons. Then give each child their own sheet of large construction or craft paper.

Give them a variety of shamrock shapes cut from heavy green construction paper. You may use different shades of green and different sizes of shamrocks, but be sure to have plenty of each.

Make an example of a shamrock insect by placing a row of shamrock shapes on your own construction paper. Make a caterpillar by placing four shamrocks along the bottom of the page and three more climbing up the slide. It should look like the shamrock caterpillar is wiggling across the paper and climbing up the side. Use markers to draw little legs coming down from each shamrock section of the body. Make an on the top right shamrock and draw antennae coming from the caterpillar's head.

Make another example of a shamrock craft for your children to see.

Place two shamrocks so that they mirror each other with the stems touching. These will be your shamrock butterfly's wings. Now draw a body segment coming down through the center of the shamrock wings. Add antennae and eyes. Use glitter and stickers to decorate the shamrock wings.

Show your children these examples of crafty shamrock insects. Then let them create their own, by using a caterpillar or butterfly idea, or by inventing their own St. Patrick's Day insects.

Encourage children to arrange and move their shamrocks around on their paper and see how many different animals and insects they can make with shamrocks. Let them show off their ideas to every child in the group. Then tell children to pick their favorite shamrock idea and glue the shamrock to the paper.

Provide markers, glitter and St. Patrick's Day craft stickers to decorate the shamrock animals and insects. Make a special St. Patrick's Day shamrock zoo of the finished animals and insects to present in the hallway at school or on the refrigerator at home. Let your children complete their fun celebration by dressing as leprechaun to give tours of their shamrock zoo.