7 Fun March Activities for 1st Grade Classrooms

March is such a fun month in the 1st-grade classroom! Spring is on the way, and with it comes St. Patrick’s Day! I love adding a bit of sparkle to our days with fun, seasonal activities for March. After a long winter, some leprechaun magic is just what we need to mix things up! If you’re looking for some fun and fresh March activities, come along as I share a few of my faves.

Getting Ready For March Activities

Since spring begins later in the month of March, we focus primarily on St. Patrick’s Day themes this month. When I was still in the classroom, I loved using the beginning of the month as an opportunity to do some “spring cleaning” and prep for warmer days ahead. Before planning my activities, I always tried to do the following:

• clear out any winter-themed books from our classroom library and swap them out for spring themes
• switch out bulletin board paper and borders with brighter colors to use during the spring months
• change out seasonal center manipulatives and materials (holiday mini-erasers, colored playdough, etc.)
• see if our classroom jobs, daily routines, and procedures need an update with the seasons
• take a minute to map out important events on the calendar for the upcoming quarter

This short list of prep doesn’t take too long but it really helps to make the classroom feel “freshened up”, while also helping me to organize my brain for the new season. I have always found it’s much easier to plan fun and engaging lessons when I have the brain space for it!

Once that’s all done, it’s time to jump into planning for the month. Here’s what I always included in our March lesson plans.

1. March Morning Work

If you’ve been around here for a bit, you might have heard me talk about the importance of a solid morning routine. Part of the reason I love this so much is that it makes planning easier! When you have a set routine for your day, you can easily plug in activities for each pocket of time to fit that need. Our mornings always include morning work since it’s an easy way to review important math and ELA concepts first thing in the morning.

During the month of March, our morning work pages focus on a variety of important skills including number bonds, word problems, fractions, ABC order, grammar and more! Each page is laid out in a familiar, predictable format as well, making them easy for students to work on independently.

By the time March rolls around, most kiddos are well-versed on what to expect from daily morning work. This allows the teacher to take a few minutes to take attendance, and get organized for the day.

After the children finish their printable morning work pages, it’s fun to pop the digital version up on the smart board and run through the answers together. You can have students correct their own work as you go through the page together. It’s also helpful to call on volunteers to come up to the board and complete the questions.

Using this blend of printable and digital morning work is a such fun way to make your review process a community-building exercise as well. The digital morning work pages also come in handy for students who are absent, simply assign them to Google Classroom to make sure they get the support they need!

2. March No-Prep Pages

Whenever I began pulling lessons together for the month, I always found myself in need of some “easy prep” activities to help fill the gaps in our day. While I wanted these to be easy for me to use, I also want them to be meaningful and helpful to students- no fluff, please!

When I’m in need of this type of activity, I loved to pull from my monthly, no-prep pages! I have a themed set for each month that features cute holiday pictures that students love. The best part though is that the pages use a spiral review of key math and ELA concepts for first-grade classrooms.

These pages are a quick and easy “print and go” option for when you just need one more activity to fill your day. I found myself using these as a transition activity while waiting to go to one of our specials (library, art, music, P.E., etc.), as fast-finisher activities, and even for independent review while I get organized for the next lesson. And. . . they are great for last minute sub plans too!

I recommend printing off a stack of the March No-Prep Pages ahead of time and keeping them in a file folder at your desk. Then, anytime the need arises for an easy (yet valuable) time-filler, you’re all set! How’s that for being prepared?! There’s nothing like having activities ready to go!

3. St. Patrick’s Day Math & Literacy Activities

St. Patrick’s Day is a great theme to use for your March activities. Many classrooms work on leprechaun traps, read silly stories, and wear green for the holiday. First graders LOVE St. Patrick’s Day and all of the leprechaun shenanigans. I always used this to my advantage by planning our math and literacy centers around this theme!

The activities in our St. Patrick’s Day math and literacy centers help students focus on important skills and concepts while embracing the fun and magic of the holiday. Some of the things included in this resource are:

• Little Books: Lucky the Leprechaun
• Story Elements Activities
• Seasonal Writing Prompts
• Parts of Speech Literacy Center
• Sums to 12 Math Center
• Data & Graphing Activities
• Color By Code Pages
• Word Searches
• St. Patrick’s Day Crowns
• St. Patrick’s Day Mobile Craft and more!

My students always LOVED these fun, March activities. Typically, I’d sprinkle these lessons throughout the month. I’d use some in small groups, some as center activities, and some for whole-group learning. Many of the no-prep pages are great for early finishers, homework, and review. Also, the crown and craft are super fun to include during the festivities on March 17th!

This resource also includes digital options for many of the centers and no-prep pages. This option offers some flexibility for classrooms utilizing technology centers, digital home assignments, and distance learning. They’re also great for an additional review after students have completed the paper versions!

4. St. Patrick’s Day Write The Room

Write the Room activities are such a great way to get students up and moving when they seem a little restless.

I loved having a few of these activities prepped and ready to go for a moment’s notice. Anytime kiddos needed a break from their desks, or if I needed just one more center activity for the day, these came in handy! My St. Patrick’s Day Write The Room Resource focuses on holiday vocabulary words that students love, so it was never hard to build some excitement for this activity!

These pages come in lots of different options to allow for differentiation and meet the needs of a variety of skill levels. Included there are landscape, portrait, lined, and unlined options with 6, 10, 12, 18, or 24 words per page. This variety also means you can use this activity more than once! Assign it as a center activity, use the cards to play “scoot”, or have your whole class travel around the room to fill in their recording sheets.

5. March Color By Code

Do you ever find yourself in need of a few, low-prep activities to practice skills? When I was in the classroom, this was definitely something I came across, but I had a hard time finding meaningful activities that actually focused on skills my students needed to work with. To remedy this, I made holiday and seasonal color-by-code activities that focus on sight words and math facts. These are two areas of focus in the first-grade classroom that we work on every single day!

You can print these coloring sheets out ahead of time and keep them in a file folder at your desk. Then, anytime you find yourself with a small pocket of time to fill, pull these out for some meaningful and engaging practice pages your students will love!

My St. Patrick’s Day Color By Code pages focus on mixed practice of addition and subtraction to 10. The pages all feature fun holiday pictures like shamrocks, leprechauns, rainbows, and more. I’ve found these pages to be such a great way to brush up on math facts in a fun way throughout the month.

If you’re looking to target sight words, be sure to check out my Spring Color By Code Pages. This resource comes with pre-made pages that cover 87 words from Fry’s First 100 Words list as well as editable pages so you can add your own. These pages are perfect for early finishers, center time, independent practice, homework or anytime you find yourself with just a few minutes to spare!

6. Low-Prep Centers For March

Do you love to use center activities but looking for a lower prep option? My March Low-Prep Centers are a great way to get the best of both worlds!

These March Activities are an easy way to swap out materials in your centers without spending a ton of time prepping. This resource includes 6 ELA and 6 math centers that focus on first-grade concepts. Here are a few of the activities included:

• Catch the Leprechaun Telling Time Game
• Spring Fractions Task Cards
• St. Patrick’s Day Addition Mystery Puzzles
• Spring Word Searches
• Spring Verbs Task Cards
• Plan & Write Activity: How to Catch a Leprechaun

These themed center activities are so much fun for students while being low-prep for teachers! Just print and go for fun and engaging center activities! These March Center activities are such a great time-saving option to add to your rotation.

7. St. Patrick’s Day BINGO Cards

Last, but not least, I have one more fun resource to share with you this month. This one is always a student favorite and super simple to use…BINGO! I love BINGO games and made a whole bunch that cover different skills and themes. During the month of March, this St. Patrick’s Day BINGO game is the perfect activity to use during your class party, on a Fun Friday, or as an afternoon activity to end your day on a fun note.

This BINGO game uses St. Patrick’s Day vocabulary words like shamrock, horseshoe, Ireland, flag, and leprechaun. Kiddos love BINGO and it makes for a fun way to practice word recognition and expand vocabulary. Plus, there are 30 cards included, so you can play this game with your whole group!

This BINGO game is versatile too! It comes in both color and black and white options so you can choose the one that works best for your class.

Use the black and white cards with BINGO daubers or use festive mini-easers as BINGO markers with the colored card set.

I liked to laminate a set of the colored cards and kept them in a bin with the calling cards and mini-erasers. Then, anytime we found ourselves with some extra “fun time” to fill, I could quickly and easily get the kids set up to play. Once students have become familiar with the words, it’s also a nice change of pace to select a student to be the caller as well!

Start Planning Your March Activities

I hope you’re feeling inspired to start getting organized for March! Don’t forget to take a few minutes prior to clear out all of your winter materials and get set up for spring as well. It always made all the difference for me! If you’re looking for more March resources, be sure to check out my TpT Shop! Happy planning, teacher-friend!

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