If ever there’s a day for rainbow cereal fun, St. Patrick’s Day is it. Here are a few ways we incorporated Froot Loops into the day to mark the holiday.

To start, surprise your kids in the morning by pretending a “leprechaun” visitor left behind a rainbow. I threaded Froot Loops in rainbow order onto a pipe cleaner, then inserted the ends into two “pots of gold” (vegan mini muffins), following a tip from Painted Confetti.

Since Froot Loops aren’t vegan, I told the kids this was magical leprechaun food for decoration, not eating. Travis was too busy to care, since he was so busy peeking inside a homemade leprechaun trap to see if it was caught inside. Looks like the little fellow got away!

Later in the day, Veronika and I used extra Froot Loops for a pretty rainbow craft. I drew the arcs of a rainbow with marker, and then dumped some of the cereal onto a tray. (Since it would be unfair to allow no snacking during a craft like this, I gave her a bowl of vegan cereal on the side for munching!).

Working with one color at a time, we made a line of glue dots along that rainbow arc and found the right color cereal in the tray.

Veronika stuck with it for a few pieces in each color, and I filled in the gaps. Preschoolers can try to tackle the full rainbow by themselves.

Cotton ball clouds were the final touch!

I loved the touch of magic that these projects gave to our holiday, leaving the impression that the leprechaun had really been there. If you truly want to wow your kids this St. Patrick’s Day, here’s one final shenanigan: Sneak downstairs before everyone else is awake and add a little green food coloring to the toilet bowl. Travis couldn’t believe this final bit of leprechaun evidence!