I started by cutting out a few shamrock shapes out of card. These were a bit dodgy; more a cross between a Club on a deck of cards and a conjoined trio of deformed love hearts than a shamrock but as Grumpy kindly pointed out, nothing in nature is perfect.
So then I put out two pots of green paint and a small selection of brushes and painting sponges. I stuck one or two Shamrocks on a sheet of paper using a small piece of rolled up Sellotape. Blue tack might have worked better, but the Sellotape was fine.
The children began to wander over to see what was going on and each was given a sheet of paper. Then they were given free rein to slap on the green paint. Once finished we took off the taped on shamrocks to leave a silhouette shape.
Grumpy kindly pointed out while shamrocks are green, my shamrock shapes would be, well, not green. So if you are after accurate horticultural replication you may wish to use white paint on green paper, or red paint on white paper and then let children colour in the white shapes with green crayon... I could go on. In the end using green paint on green or white paper was the most successful but the other colours worked quite nicely too.
The older children painted the actual shamrocks rather than the space around them, and some were a little put out when I said I was going to remove them, though they enjoyed shouting 'ready steady GO!'. In fact the younger children probably enjoyed the actual activity better, while the older ones appreciated the end result.
The parents' input was interesting too. Some parents sat right back and let their kids get on with it, some sat and helped their children do it 'right' and one daddy stared over his tiny toddler daughter's shoulder with such intense pride as - was that a tear I saw him blink back? - she slapped green paint all over her picture, the table and herself with a mini sponge paint-roller that I was slightly relieved when he finally enlightened me with a beaming smile: "I'm a painter too."
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