Shownotes
153. Shamrocks, Rainbows, and Gold: St. Patrick’s Day SEL That Actually Works
March in an elementary school often comes with a little extra magic.
Leprechaun footprints.
Construction paper rainbows.
Gold coins hidden in classrooms.
But seasonal fun doesn’t have to mean fluffy lessons.
In this episode, I'm sharing creative ways to turn St. Patrick’s Day excitement into meaningful social-emotional learning experiences that students will actually remember.
You’ll hear simple strategies you can use right away to teach growth mindset, resilience, goal setting, impulse control, and emotional regulation — all while leaning into the fun of the season.
As I remind students during one of these lessons:
“Some people think leprechauns bring the gold… but what if the real gold comes from effort?”
In This Episode
• A Luck vs Effort growth mindset lesson students love
• How to use rainbows to teach goal setting
• Turning leprechaun traps into problem-solving activities
• A character traits treasure hunt with gold coins
• A gratitude shift from “I’m lucky because…” to “I worked hard for…”
• A playful impulse control lesson: Leprechaun Trick or Think
• Rainbow Regulation coping strategies for younger students
These activities help students understand that success isn’t about luck.
It’s about effort, perseverance, and learning along the way.
Seasonal lessons can absolutely be fun.
But when you add purpose, reflection, and conversation, they become something much more powerful.
Because when students are laughing, engaged, and thinking…
That’s when the learning sticks.
And that might just be the real pot of gold.
Resources Mentioned
Being Golden with your Cyber Smarts
Grab the Show Notes: Counselingessentials.org/podcast
Join Perks Counseling Club Membership and get the lessons, small group and individual counseling materials you need. Join now and get your first month free when you sign up for 3 months!
Connect with Carol:
Transcripts
You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy.
I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students.
If you're looking for a little inspiration to help help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're
in the right place.
Because we're better together.
Ready to chat.
Let's dive in.
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. I'm your host, Carol, and today we're bringing a little sparkle,
a little shamrock, and a whole lot of sel into your counseling program.
Because tell me something,
how many of you are already having leprechaun footprints happening everywhere in your building?
Maybe there's some construction paper hats or those tiny gold coins.
Maybe there's even a trap or two hiding somewhere.
I think March can be such a fun time in an elementary school.
But here's what I don't want for you.
I don't want seasonal to mean fluff.
And I don't want St. Patrick's Day to mean, well, I guess we'll just do something cute.
We can absolutely lean into the fun and still make it meaningful.
I'm going to be sharing with you in this episode some things that I am doing in my own building and some ideas that I think you can add to your own march shenanigans.
So are you ready?
Cause let's just dive in.
So I recently,
I already started my St. Patrick's Day lessons,
believe it or not.
And I really wanted to lean into that fun.
And I did this luck versus effort lesson.
And I, I didn't wait. I couldn't wait until the week of St. Patrick's Day. I just went for it and I brought out the leprechauns, the little pots of gold, I mean, the whole thing.
And the kids absolutely loved it. They were engaged, they were laughing,
but most importantly, they were also thinking.
And so the lesson that I did with them was luck versus effort. It was growth, mindset, gold.
It really is going to be one of my anchor lessons for growth, mindset and grit and motivation as we start to head into our career research.
And so here's the big question that I asked.
Is success about luck or effort?
And I framed it like this with my kids.
Some people think leprechauns bring the gold,
but what if the real gold comes from effort?
Because I also did this lesson the week after the Olympics ended.
It was kind of perfect too, because we were also able to compare it to the athletes in the Winter Games and how when they were doing their sports, especially if you were watching figure skating or some of the other sports, it just.
They made it seem so easy.
And then we talked about how that easiness came from a whole lot of effort.
And because this is a growth mindset lesson, we talked about lucky thinking, which is really fixed thinking. But we changed it to lucky thinking,
just bad at math. She's just smart.
He's just good at sports.
Versus we had our effort thinking, which is our growth mindset.
And for this it was. I practiced, I asked for help. I didn't give up. I tried again.
For my lesson, I had the kids hold up either one finger.
I gave them a whole bunch of scenarios and I had them hold up one finger if they thought it was lucky thinking or two fingers if they thought the statement was effort thinking or our growth mindset thinking.
Now I use fingers, had them hold up fingers because our room was really small. But you can easily turn this into a this or that.
We're on sides of the rooms. So one side for lucky thinking, the other side for effort thinking or your growth mindset.
You can have them put them all on strips of paper, have them cut it out, and then sort. There's a whole bunch of things, ways that you can incorporate this little activity.
But some of the things,
some of the situations that we talked about were,
I'm just not good at math or I studied every night for this test or she's lucky, she just understands reading versus if I practice, I can improve.
We also talked about not just academics, but our skills and talents.
Like I'm bad at math or he made the team because he's lucky.
Both are lucky thinking versus I can improve with effort or I didn't win, but I learned.
And we also brought in some social and emotional situations as well.
Like making friends is just luck.
There's our lucky thinking.
Or if I'm kind, I can build friendships.
That's definitely effort thinking.
I can apologize and try again.
Once again, effort thinking versus nobody likes me a little lucky thinking.
You can also turn this into like a scoot game and have a growth mindset scooter.
So the luck versus effort is a really great theme to bring in to your lessons.
And what I really love most is you can ask the kid, my gold comes from what. And have them fill it in.
Right. Their success. How do they get their Success from effort.
Really, what I love most about all of this is the kids were really into it.
And because leprechauns and pots of gold feel playful,
the message sticks.
And the real treasure is the effort.
Now, you could also do a follow the rainbow theme, which is basically goal setting with steps.
And this one is another one that works beautifully in March because rainbows don't appear instantly. They show up after storms.
And that's a really powerful metaphor for kids.
So you can have each color of the rainbow represent a step towards a goal.
Red could be like my big goal. Orange is my first step. Yellow, the skills I need.
Green, who can help me?
Blue,
obstacles I might face.
Purple, how I'll keep going.
And students build their own rainbow ladder.
And then you can say, the pot of gold isn't at the end of the rainbow.
It's built one color at a time.
And goal setting, it doesn't feel so overwhelming when you. When you break it into colors.
You could also talk about leprechaun traps. I mean, they're probably all over your school building anyway.
But for sel,
turn it into problem solving.
So we're going to elevate it a little bit from what the teachers are already doing in their classrooms. Instead of building something cute, we're going to shift it, like I said, to problem solving.
So you can ask students, what problems are you trying to solve? What might go wrong?
What will you do if it doesn't work?
How will you improve it?
And suddenly this becomes a lesson on flexible thinking,
resilience, trial and error,
and learning from mistakes.
And after the building, reflect.
What did we do?
Why did we do it?
What worked?
What would we change?
And how does this relate to real life?
I mean, it's kind of like stem meets cell,
and it is pure magic.
You could also do the real gold. It's kind of like a character traits treasure hunt. You can hide paper gold coins around your room,
and on each coin, write a character trait. Kindness, perseverance, responsibility,
honesty, courage, teamwork.
And have your students collect the coins.
Then you can ask which trait is most valuable?
And what would happen if our school had more of this trait?
And if leprechauns guarded character instead of gold,
which trait would be the hardest to find?
I mean, the discussion with this one gets so good because now they're thinking beyond the glitter.
Another little lesson that you can use with the lucky theme is lucky to be me,
which is a grateful to be me.
So instead of having students say I'm lucky because shift it. I'm Grateful because.
Or even better,
I worked hard for,
because that subtle shift moves kids from passive luck thinking to really active ownership.
And you can have students write on gold coins, a skill I've improved, a challenge I overcame,
a mistake I learned from something I practiced.
And this reinforces effort, resilience, and growth. And really, it's the perfect little lesson if you are doing lunch bunches and you're having the kids come in and they're eating lunch with you and you know, there's not a whole lot of time,
but it's a skill that they can grab really quickly and easily.
And like I said,
those discussions are great ones to have.
Another lesson that you can do is don't get tricked by the leprechaun.
And this is an impulse control lesson.
Okay,
now this one is so fun,
you're going to tell the students the leprechaun is trying to trick them into quick reactions,
give scenarios.
Someone bumped you in line, you lose a game.
A friend doesn't pick you. You don't get called on.
Someone laughs when you make a mistake.
You know those real life things that actually do happen in school.
And then ask, is that an impulsive reaction or was it a wise reaction?
And you can call it leprechaun trick or think.
Students decide, react fast or popular.
And you've just taught impulse control in a way that feels seasonal and maybe a little silly.
Another fun little lesson is rainbow regulation,
where each rainbow color represents a different coping strategy.
Red can be deep breaths. Orange, ask for help.
Yellow, positive self talk.
Green,
take a break.
Blue, write it down.
Purple, move your body.
And students can create their own regulation rainbow.
And you can ask, which color do you use the most?
Which one do you need to practice?
It's simple, it's visual, and it really works beautifully for tier one.
This is a great one for your little kids. And once again, for lunch bunches.
So here's what I love most about March lessons.
They really allow us to lean into imagination.
And imagination doesn't mean meaningless.
You can have leprechauns and leadership rainbows and regulation gold coins and growth mindset.
Once again, my friends, seasonal doesn't mean fluff.
It can still be intentional.
So if you're planning your March lessons, maybe ask yourself,
where can I add a little sparkle without losing the substance?
Because when kids are laughing,
when they're engaged,
when they're leaning in,
that's when the learning sticks.
And honestly,
that's the real pot of gold.
Well, I want to thank you so much for spending part of your day with me.
I do have some of these lessons in my TPT store and and so I will if you're interested and you want to check them out, I will have them or the links for them in the Show Notes.
They're also all in Perks. So if you're a member of Perks,
head into our seasonal lessons, our March lessons, and you'll find them.
And if you try one of these lessons, I would love to hear how it goes.
Send me a message, tag me, or share it in the Facebook groups. I would love to hear it.
So once again, if you want to check out the lessons,
check the Show Notes because I'll have them all right there.
And until next time, my friends,
I hope you have a lucky no hardworking week until next time.
Really, have a great week.
Bye for now.
Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and at counselingessentials.org/podcast.
Be sure to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player and if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect?
Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at Counseling Essentials. Until next time. Can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.
