St. Patrick's Day Pot of Gold Craft

St. Patrick's Day is a wonderful holiday for crafts. The fun themes, bold colors, and general likability make people of all ages want to celebrate it. In addition to making a fun leprechaun craft this year my son and I decided to make a pot of gold for the fellow. For this craft we used a toilet paper roll, some black and gold construction paper, and glue and tape. It was a very easy, cheap, quick, and fun craft to make. My son is four years old but it is something that I think even a two-year-old could do will very little help.

As the teacher or parent all that you have to do is cut a toilet paper roll two-thirds of the way down. If you are going to have several children do this craft then you can get three pots of gold per toilet paper roll. When I worked at a day care we had classrooms with as many as 20 children in them. When designing this craft I kept that in mind. My son and I do crafts often though and so we usually have different lengths of toilet rolls in our craft supplies box from previous crafts that we do. Cutting the toilet paper roll is not that difficult but it can be kind of tricky and is not something that I would recommend for young children. After cutting the toilet paper roll cut out a strip of black construction paper that can wrap around the toilet paper roll. This can be a great opportunity if you are working with children who can cut paper to use critical thinking and trial and error to cut the correct length and width of a strip of paper. If you have paper to spare then you should consider letting them experiment until they get it right.

The next shapes are even more fun to cut. If you want you can trace around the toilet paper roll to get a circle of gold or yellow paper that will fit inside the toilet paper roll. If cutting a circle out is kind of difficult for the children that you are working with give them the task of tracing and you do the cutting. If you have a lot of crafts and cannot really monitor how well everyone is cutting then you can cut out all the needed shapes ahead of time. In addition to the black strip for the outside of the pot of gold and yellow or gold circle for the inside of the pot of gold you can also cut out the random looking shape that looks like a pile of of coins. For this part you can have the children draw on the shape that you have chosen or have them interpret what that shape might look like. My son and I went with a cloud-like shape.

To put the St. Patrick's Day pot of gold craft together all you have to do is put glue all over the outside of the toilet paper roll. Then wrap the black strip around it. If you are out of glue or prefer to use tape then you can wrap the black strip of construction paper around the toilet paper roll and tape it in place. Then glue or tape the circle that you cut from yellow or gold construction paper in the middle of the inside of the pot of gold. By placing it in the middle you will give the illusion that the pot of gold is full. Lastly glue or tape the gold coins shape that you cut out to the inside side of the pot of gold. If you have gold or yellow glitter you can make it seem like the gold is shimmering. The kids should get a kick out of that and a small pinch of glitter goes a long way. For step by step pictures of the St. Patrick's Day pot of gold craft and a leprechaun craft that goes perfect with it check out EasyToddlerCrafts.com.