Shamrocks are such an iconic part of St. Patrick’s day, and I wanted to introduce my kids to shamrocks ahead of the holiday. We had done a fizzy paint activity for Valentine’s that they both enjoyed, so as one of our St. Patrick’s Day activities, I decided to bring the fizzy paint back with a St. Patrick’s Day twist! That is how our magic fizzing shamrocks activity was born!
Note: You can find this and other St. Patrick’s activities on my St. Patrick’s Day activities for kids page.
I prepared the following materials for this activity:
- Painting paper cut into a shamrock shape
- Green fizzy paint (see my Valentine’s heart fizzy painting post for info on how to make fizzy paint)
- A paint brush
- A small cup of vinegar
- A plastic pipette
Initially, I just presented the shamrock form on a tray and we talked about its significance for St. Patrick’s Day as well as its shape and color. At that point, I let the kids have the paint to begin turning their shamrocks green.
After they had completely filled in their shamrocks, I handed them the cups of vinegar with the pipette. QBoy decided to smell his vinegar and declared that it smelled bad. 🙂
The kids then began adding vinegar to their shamrocks. There was a great bubbling effect as the vinegar came into contact with the baking soda in the paint.
These three pictures show the reaction between the baking soda and vinegar over the span of several seconds.
Lots of fun for St. Patrick’s Day! What will you and your kids be doing to celebrate?
More St. Patrick’s Day ideas for kids
More St. Patrick’s Day posts from Gift of Curiosity:
- Books about St. Patrick’s Day
- Magic leprechaun rocks
- St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin
- Build a 3D rainbow
- Rainbow do-a-dot printable
- St. Patrick’s Day Printables Pack
- St. Patrick’s Day do-a-dot printables
- St. Patrick’s Day coloring pages
For more St. Patrick’s activity ideas, check out my St. Patrick’s Day Activities for Kids page and my St. Patrick’s Day Pinterest board.
Oh, this looks like so much fun! I love the mix of art and science/discovery! Pinning now so I can try it later. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
What a fun idea! I pinned your post to my Kids’ St. Patrick’s Day Activities Board at http://pinterest.com/debchitwood/kids-st-patrick-s-day-activities/
Fun! I’m pinning this to my St. Patrick’s Day board…my son would really enjoy this!
Love this activity! I’ll be doing this with my boys soon!! Thanks for the idea.
Visiting you from TGIF at Living Life Intentionally. I love this idea!!! Looks like a lot of fun! I can’t wait to try it for St. Patrick’s Day!!! I also pinned it to my Holidays: St. Patty’s Day board on Pinterest.
What a fun idea! I can see my kids going bonkers for this 🙂 I would love to invite you to link up at our Share It Saturday linky party. We have lots of creative ideas submitted each week and you would fit right in!
Colleen at Sugar Aunts
Great craft and I love the addition of the “fizz”. My boys would find that entertaining!
Just came across your site and I love it!! Please tell me where you got all those art trays from … I searched your site and the web but couldn’t find the same size. Thanks!!
I got them at Lakeshore Learning. Here’s a link to the product webpage if you want more info: http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/product/productDet.jsp?productItemID=1%2C689%2C949%2C371%2C898%2C055&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=1408474395181113&bmUID=1362283210775
We’ve used vinegar and baking soda for volcanoes, but you have come up with some awesome creative uses for it. I love the idea of using it as paint.
This looks like a really fun hands-on activity! I’m featuring it this week on Learn with Play at home. Thanks for linking it to Tuesday Tots. Have a great day 🙂
Thanks so much! Glad you like our activity.
Very Neat!
Thanks for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
It looks like your kids had so much fun with this craft!
Thanks for linking up to the Hearts for Home Blog Hop! Blessings!!
Hi! I’m co-hosting Mom’s library this week and I featured your magic fizzing shamrocks.
Thanks!
We love this project so much, that we are featuring your post tomorrow on Share It Saturday. Stop by and visit if you like. We will also be sharing with our FB and Twitter followers and pinning to our Share It Saturday Group Pinterest board.
We hope to see your posts back at Share It Saturday again, we love your ideas 🙂
Colleen at Sugar Aunts
Thanks! I’m following you on Pinterest and I’ve liked you on Facebook! I would appreciate it if you could follow me back!
These are really neat! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!
This looks like so much fun!
LOVE this. MUST “Steal” this idea from you. With proper credit of course. 🙂
Love this project! How does it look when it’s dry? Does the paint flake off?
For us the activity was about process rather than product, so we didn’t save it once we were done.
For all of the fizzy experiments we’ve done, I don’t think we’ve ever done one with painting. I might have to remedy that……
Thanks for linking up to Science Sunday!
I love your fizzing shamrocks. I’ve featured your post today on my blog. Thank you for sharing it on the weekly kids co-op!
Thanks so much for featuring my post!
What a brilliant activity – I love it!
A great selection – we love the rainbow fish so definitely checking that out.
Thanks for sharing on The Sunday Showcase. I’ve pinned to our board.
love how you combined some art with some fun science in this activity. I have featured you on this week’s Sunday Showcase.
Thanks so much for featuring our magic fizzing shamrocks!
What do you mean painting paper? Is that the same as finger paint paper?
I believe we did use finger paint paper, but really I just mean any paper thick enough for paint (i.e., that you can paint on without putting holes in it).