St. Patrick's Day Gold Dig • Capturing Parenthood

We made sure to purchase some shiny green and gold coins to entice leprechauns to visit our house this St. Patrick’s Day, but why should they get to have all of the fun with the gold coins? 🙂 Since we have a few days before the holiday, we decided to share a couple of engaging, gold coin activities this week…starting with this St. Patrick’s Day Gold Dig!

So, put on your leprechaun hats (or pirate hats, if you wish) and dig in! This wonderful sensory experience will have your little ones jumping for joy, and shouting with glee! “We’ve struck gold!”

St. Patrick’s Day Gold Dig

Supplies:

Large Plastic Tub
Plastic Gold Coins (I ordered this pack from Amazon)
Shaving Cream
Green Food Coloring
Spatula/Spoon
Bowl of Water
Hand Towel

Instructions:

Start by thoroughly shaking the canister of shaving cream. Spray the shaving cream into the plastic tub. We used approximately one full canister of shaving cream for this activity.
Place a few drops of green food coloring on top of the shaving cream. Using the spatula (or spoon), mix the food coloring and shaving cream together, until all of the shaving cream has turned green.
Pour in your gold coins. Mix them into the shaving cream with the spatula (or your hands) until they are all spread out and completely covered with shaving cream.
Set the bowl of water and hand towel to the side of the plastic tub.
Start digging! When your kiddos find a gold coin, have them place it in the bowl of water. Keep digging until all of the gold coins have been discovered.
It is highly likely that your little ones will want to immediately repeat the gold dig! Simply swirl the coins around in the bowl of water (to remove any shaving cream), toss them back into the tub, and begin again!

Our little nugget had the best time with this squishy, sensory, St. Patrick’s Day Gold Dig! During our first dig, we pretended to be leprechauns in search of some shiny gold. The second time around, we donned our very best pirate attire, and searched for buried treasure. And when we tired of digging for gold, we squished our hands down into the green foam, and pretended to be monsters!

When all was said and done, we rinsed our gold coins and set them out on a towel to dry. Not ten minutes later, when our daughter noticed that all of the gold was sitting out on the dining room table, she came running in with her Minnie Mouse purse and bellowed, “We have to hide our pennies in my purse, so the dragons don’t eat them!” Leprechauns…pirates…monsters…dragons! Needless to say, it was a very exciting day in our household. 🙂