Surfing the Net with kids
In celebration of St. Patrick's Day, I present you five free clip art sites. But first a couple of ground rules. One, please respect common clip art etiquette and do not hotlink directly to these images. Instead, always download images to your computer and then upload them to your own Web server or free image hosting account. Two, although I have included a brief summary of each site's terms of service, be sure to look at each one more closely because it's impossible for me to accurately cover all the details in this short space.
Clip Art 'n Crafts: St. Patrick's Day Clip Art Collection
www.clipartandcrafts.com/clipart/holidays/stpatrick/
From the creative mind of graphic artist Lee Hansen, Clip Art 'n Crafts covers all the holidays, including this excellent collection of original St. Patrick's Day artwork. You are granted rights to use individual images (but not the whole collection) on personal, noncommercial websites or in the classroom. "St. Patrick's Day crafting is easy with these free Irish graphics and clip art orders. You'll find plenty of green and orange with shamrocks, leprechauns, doves for peace, ribbons, Irish blessings, and pots of gold at the end of the St. Patrick's day rainbow."
Ireland First: Clip Art Archive www.eirefirst.com/clipart.html
With 264 Irish-themed images, the Ireland First collection is the largest of today's St. Patrick's Day collections. All the clip art is "royalty free and may be saved/downloaded and printed/used freely by anyone in any way." Enjoy the shamrocks, leprechauns, pots of gold, rainbows, Irish hats, and page borders. Note that this page includes images of beer, so parents and teachers will need to use discretion.
Kaboose: St. Patrick's Clip Art holidays.kaboose.com/patrick-clip.html
This small collection of St. Patrick's Day clip art is of excellent quality. "They are optimized to be small in size with transparent backgrounds, so you can use them on any color pages." The images include lots of teddy bears, children "wearing the green," leprechauns, and shamrocks. The only limitation on usage that I could find was the stipulation not to include these graphics in any other clip art collections.
The Kidz Page: St. Patrick's Day Clip Art www.thekidzpage.com/freekidsclipart/holidays/stpatricks/
These 46 St. Patrick's Day images are just a small part of the Kidz Page clip art collection, which houses more than 2,000 free images. You are given permission to use these images on personal or classroom pages, as long as you include an icon with a link back to the Kidz Page site. Use the next and back buttons to scroll through the collection, which includes oodles of leprechauns and shamrocks. I particularly liked the 10 shamrock numbers (zero to nine) on the second page.
