Leprechaun Traps

So you may be wondering what a leprechaun trap is?  Well, we have been reading a rather silly book this week: The Night Before St. Patrick's Day, by Natasha Wing,

and in this story the children create leprechaun traps to catch one of these wee little ones and trick him into giving them his gold.

On Monday the kids that stay in the after school program decided they wanted to try and make their own leprechaun traps, and just today they almost caught one, but instead they only caught his shoes!  However the leprechaun let us know in his note that they could have a wee bit of his gold for trapping his shoes.  Here is our adventure...

The first thing we made was gold to lure the leprechaun in.

Our gold was made by painting acorns and acorn tops with watered down glue and the sprinkle them with gold glitter

 More Gold Making

Our finished treasure

Painting coffee cans to capture the leprechaun

Next, we filled the traps with things the children thought the leprechaun would like such as green moss, large rings, mushrooms, shiny things, and of course our fool's gold.

The traps are set, now it is only a matter of time...

...Well, it was around 12:30 right after lunch when we heard it.  Something at the door, and then one of the children found this note tucked in the door.  Then they all grabbed their shoes and ran outside to see if we caught a leprechaun

We didn't catch him, but we did get a wee bit of his gold for trapping his shoes!

Here is a little video of the children running outside to check the traps.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and don't lose the wonder and magic of your youth!