Originally Published January, 2022| Last Updated March 3, 2026.
Find great Irish and St. Patrick’s Day elementary music lesson plans, songs, dances, play alongs, and more.
The music, instruments, dance, and culture of Ireland create great learning opportunities in the music classroom.
St. Patrick’s Day is a prime time for these resources but also any time you want to talk about folk instruments, dances, and music.
The Playlist
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☘️ St. Patrick’s Day and Irish History
🇮🇪 Google Slide Presentation ⬇️
How To Access the Presentation:
- At the bottom of the slide, click on the 3 dots to find the ENTER FULL-SCREEN link.
- Click to Begin or Enter Full Screen & Begin
If you have a problem, send an email to oodlesofmusic21@gmail.com or comment below.
🇮🇪 International Bagpipe Day, March 10
This “In the News” segment for International Bagpipe Day includes:
- Brief look at the history of bagpipes. (1:24)
- Science of Sound-how the bagpipe works (4:00)
- OLD TOWN ROAD played on a bagpipe. 🤣 (2:40)
- How to play the bagpipes. (1:13)
Start your class with this 5-9 minute activity!
☘️ St. Patrick’s Day Elementary Music Lesson Plans, Resources, and Activities
🇮🇪 St. Patrick’s Day & March Songs to Sing
🔸Rattlin’ Bog Performance
🔸Rattlin’ Bog Orff Arrangement & Resource (Gr. 3-5)
🔸Follow the Rainbow (Gr. K-5)
This song by Teresa Jennings is FABULOUS and for the price of the singles kit on Music K8 ($14.95 currently), it is worth it because you can use it any time of the year and you WILL use it every year!
Scarves for Movement on Amazon
These highly rated scarves in rainbow colors by AIVIAI provide a lot of BANG for your BUCK! I used scarves for K-3 movement and centers. A 3-4 person center group can create a routine to a known classroom song (sung a cappella) and share with the teacher/class at the end of the rotation!
🇮🇪 Irish Songs to Play or Play Along
🔸MAD for MARCH | Song, EASY Orff Arrangement, With Play Along Backing Track
You’ll be on top of your game (like March Madness) with this song and easy Orff arrangement that kids will love playing along to the hip-hop backing track! Hear the fun Mad for March backing track and song on TPT!
They’ll be hooked with the first BOOM, BOOM, BAM!
Lyrics include info about St. Patrick’s Day, Pi Day, the Vernal Equinox, and basketball!
AND, it’s the perfect song to teach half notes, quarter notes and rests, and barred eighths.
🔸Percussion Play Along (Gr. 3-5)
A fun percussion play along for older grades. Copy & paste the below lesson plan right into your planner!
Lesson Plan
- Do NOT get out instruments right away!
- Have the entire class CLAP just one of the parts for about a minute until they get the hang of the beat and timing. Switch to a different part.
- Start over with the class divided up into the four parts and use four different body percussion sounds. Stomp-Pat-Clap-Snap
- Switch parts
- Start over and use vocal/mouth sounds: “Boom”-”Ch”-”Zip”-(lip smacks)
- NOW you can get out the instruments!
🔸The St. Patrick Rap! (Gr. 1-3)
Uses quarters, 2 eighths, and body percussion!
🔸Pirate Battle (Gr. 2-5)
Lesson Ideas: Use 4 teams (groups), body percussion first, then UPP percussion! Grades 2-5
🔸Boomwhacker Play Alongs PlayList (K-5)
An entire playlist of Irish songs for Boomwhackers that range from easy to moderately difficult. Here’s one to get started, Cooley’s Irish Reel.
🇮🇪 Movement Activities
Moving to Irish Music (Prek-Grade 3)
Objectives: moving to/keeping a steady beat, micro/macro beats, feeling phrase/section lengths, becoming familiar with Irish music (jig).
🔸Shamrock Beat (Gr. 1-3)
Objectives & Elements:
Echo song with scarf and movement. (echo male voice)
Verse & Chorus with lots of repetition.
🔸Moving to Irish Music-Stepping, Floating, Skipping (Gr. Prk-2)
🔸The Broom Dance (gr. K-3)
- Set up three chairs and two lines of students (facing into center is best) are lined up from the two outer chairs. There are three students sitting in the chairs and the student in the middle has a shamrock (or valentine or snowflake or whatever)
- When the music begins, everyone claps the steady beat and the child with the shamrock gives the shamrock to either the person on their right or left. The person who just received the shamrock moves to the middle seat and the two others dance down the lane and join the end of their respective lines.
- The empty chairs are taken by the student next in line from each of the two rows.
- Use any fun Irish song!
- This is a great movement activity for K-2.
☘️ Decor & Attire for St. Patrick’s Day
Fun Irish T-Shirts
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Displays
