Rainbow Pot of Gold St. Patrick's Day Craft

When my kids were toddlers I discovered that painting with pom poms was a super easy way for their little hands to grasp the “brush” and paint. Over the years we’ve tried tons and tons of different ways to paint without paintbrushes, but we circle back to painting with pom poms time and time again. And of course with rainbows and St. Patrick’s Day coming our way in spring, we just had to experiment with pom pom painted rainbow art. This is the first of two posts inspired by our fun with pom pom painted rainbows. The other art project is a spring rainbow craft. This Rainbow Pot of Gold St. Patrick’s Day Craft is a crafty way for kids to work on color recognition, fine motor control, scissor skills and more.

FIND EVEN MORE ST. PATRICK’S DAY IDEAS IN OUR PRINTABLE ST. PATRICK’S DAY THEME LESSON PLANS.

Materials for the Rainbow Pot of Gold St. Patrick’s Day Craft

Clothespins-Thank you CraftProjectIdeas.com for keeping us stocked up on them! We put them to good use regularly.
A rainbow of pom poms-You can often find bags of these at Dollar Tree
Gold coins-Also from Dollar Tree or the seasonal section of your local craft store
Paint
Cardstock-Black and white
Scissor
Glue

We always love to read a few good books to go along with our activities too. Here are some of our favorite books for St. Patrick’s Day.

Directions

We set up our paint and pom pom brushes in an egg carton. If your little one has never painted with pom poms before, I recommend allowing for some free exploration to experiment with making marks and free painting before starting this activity.

When you’re ready to paint a rainbow, start by painting on the diagonal upward across the paper. It’s okay if your child’s version is completely different. That’s part of the fun!

As you paint you can also count how many dots it takes to make each color. (Or you can do this afterward if your child prefers to work without interruption.)

Once your rainbow dries, cut off the extra white paper along the sides of the rainbow (leaving the extra along the bottom for the pot of gold to be attached to).

While your paint dries, cut out a pot of gold from a half sheet of black card stock or construction paper. I let my six year old cut this freely, but if your child prefers you can draw a simple outline to cut.

Grab some glue and gold coins. If you prefer not to use gold coins, you could also try yellow dot stickers, pom pom painted “gold”, sparkly gold foam sheets cut into circles, or gold stickers.

Add glue to the back of your pot.

Then place the gold coins at the top of the pot so they are hanging out over the edge.

Add another layer of glue on top of the gold coins…unless your child used a ton of glue the first time and it’s oozing at the sides for you already. 😉

Flip the pot with the coins over and position it at the bottom of the rainbow. Let it dry, and ta da! You’ve got a colorful rainbow pot of gold St. Patrick’s Day craft to display.

Extend this activity by incorporating some writing. You could…

Have kids brainstorm different things they would do or buy with their gold and write them on “gold coin” cutouts to hang with the craft
Write about one thing they would do with their gold and describe it in detail in a paragraph
Write about something helpful they could do with their gold
Write about how they would trick a leprechaun to get to the gold

For more tips about using writing prompts with kids, visit our writing prompts information page.

MORE ST. PATRICK’S DAY THEME FUN WITH PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.