STEM and seasons match perfectly with fun challenges involving leprechaun traps, gold pots, and rainbows! If you want to keep the kids busy, these printable St Patrick’s Day STEM challenge cards are the solution! Encourage your kiddos to learn about the design process and to invent, design, and engineer their solutions to everyday problems. Simple STEM activities are perfect year-round!

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What do St Patrick’s Day STEM challenges look like?

STEM challenges are usually open-ended suggestions to solve an everyday problem or improve an everyday situation. They are meant to get your kids thinking about and using the design process.

What’s the design process? I’m glad you asked! In many ways, it’s a series of steps an engineer, inventor, or scientist would go through to solve a problem.

Read more about the engineering design process here.

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Note: While these cards are St. Patrick’s Day themed selections, your kiddos can look around their communities, homes, and classrooms to come up with a problem that they would like to find a solution for instead.

Plus, you can have your kiddos do some research by asking questions. Enlist family and friends about a problem they would like to solve! This is a great way to get started with STEM challenges and explore ways to make the world better around you.

Examples of the St Patrick’s Day STEM Challenges include:

  • Build a leprechaun trap to catch a leprechaun!
  • Help! The leprechaun lost his hat… design a new one!
  • Get the leprechaun to his pot of gold with a new bridge!
  • Test your engineering skills with a gold coin tower!

How To Set Up St Patrick’s Day STEM Challenges

You can use what you have and let your kids get creative with simple materials.

My pro tip is to grab a large, clean, and clear plastic tote or bin. Whenever you come across a cool item you would normally toss into recycling, toss it in the bin instead. This goes for packaging materials and items you may otherwise throw away.

Standard STEM materials to save include:

  • paper towel tubes
  • toilet roll tubes
  • plastic bottles
  • tin cans (clean, smooth edges)
  • old CDs
  • cereal boxes, oatmeal containers
  • bubble wrap
  • packing peanuts

More supplies to have on hand:

  • tape
  • glue and tape
  • scissors
  • markers and pencils
  • paper
  • rulers and measuring tape
  • recycled goods bin
  • non-recycled goods bin

Themed Supplies:

  • Gold coins
  • Plastic mini cauldrons
  • Rainbow colored materials
  • Green and gold colored materials

STEM Resources To Get You Started

Here are a few resources to help you introduce STEM more effectively to your kiddos or students and feel confident when presenting materials. You’ll find helpful free printables throughout.

More Fun St. Patrick’s Day Activities For Kids

Also, check out…

Printable St. Patrick’s Day STEM Pack

Over 100 pages of easy-to-use STEM activities will make your prep and planning time a cinch! Cheap supplies, easy to set up and clean up, and full of hands-on fun!

  • 25+ St. Patrick’s Day science activities and STEM projects for kids that are easy to set up and fit into your available time, even if it’s limited!
  • Printable leprechaun theme STEM activities that are simple but engaging for home or classroom. Perfect for K-2 and beyond but easily adaptable to many skill levels.
  • Includes simple background science explanations to share with kids while they explore hands-on and playful experiments, projects, and activities such as simple physics and chemistry concepts.
  • Engaging St. Patrick’s Day STEM activities pack with theme activities, journal pages, and design process steps! Learn about the design process and think like an engineer while you design and build a Leprechaun Trap!
  • Easy to gather supplies makes these STEM activities ideal when you have limited resources available. Try the leprechaun launcher or rocket! Solve codes and puzzles, too.
  • Additional STEM activities Include the tallest gold coin tower challenge, brick building challenges, math task cards, and screen-free coding activities.
  • Bonus fun pack includes games and activities to round out your St. Patrick theme activities, such as I Spy, bingo, matching, Would You Rather cards, board games, word puzzles, and more! Perfect for parties, too!
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