This Pot Of Gold Rhythm Activity is a great rhythm game for any St Patrick’s Day celebrations you may be planning. It makes a guessing game out of the rhythms taken from our other St Patrick’s Day songs, so click on the links below if you need to check on those.
Michael Finnegan – visit this post to print off the free printable Michael Finnegan stick puppet
I Can Sing a Rainbow – Sung on St Paddy’s Day because that’s where the leprechauns hide their gold!
The Leprechaun Song – Two simple songs to sing about leprechauns.
How To Get Started
Use the printable below to make as many coins as you need. Stick the sheets to shiny, gold coloured wrapping paper and make up the rhythm coins gold on one side and with different rhythms on the reverse side. Choose rhythms which are appropriate to the age of the children – there are a mixture of abilities on the sheet below. Once you get the idea, you may want to add some more of your own and you can make your own Michael finnigan stick puppet for the Michael Finnegan volunteer to hold.
How To Play This Rhythm Activity
- Before starting to play the game make sure the children are all familiar with the rhythms on the coins.
- First read out and clap each rhythm together.
- Then, sitting in a circle hand out a coin to each child.
- Pass some sticks around the circle and each child taps the rhythm on their coin.
- Then pass the coins to the person on the left, and repeat the process, until everyone has had a go.
Print the Pot of Gold Rhythm game Pot of Gold Rhythm game
Place the coins in a pot and make your little Michael Finnegan leprechaun volunteer stand guard over the gold coins. Each child should take turns to approach Michael Finnegan and whisper in his ear…
“Michael Finnegan what lovely whiskers you have on your chinigan! Please may I take a coin from your pot of gold?”
And Michael Finnegan replies….
The children get very involved with the idea of asking him for permission and telling him the ‘secret’ ( the words on the individual cards chanted in rhythm) and they don’t really realise that they are being tested to read the notes!After playing the rhythm game you could do some Celtic inspired jigs and dancing to some traditional Celtic folk music. Proper Irish dancing takes a lot of practice and dedication, but when you play this music it’s impossible not to jig!
Holding hands and skipping round in time to the music also works well. Use the link above which lists several suitable youtube links for some jolly jigging!
My students are very excited with your Pot Of Gold Rhythm Activity. Thank you for sharing!
That’s great Lauren I’m so pleased to hear that! I hope they have lots of fun with it! 😀