Posted by Nicole Carney on Mar 12, 2013 in St. Patrick's Day | 0 comments

The boys first realized we had a leprechaun in the house when they went for their evening bath and found this:

tiny green footprints leading to a tub full of green water!

 Then, the next morning they opened their bedroom doors to discover this:

rainbow streamers woven through the hallway!

Since then, that wily leprechaun has pulled even more pranks, right under our noses!

• He changed our living room furniture around, and swapped the kitchen table chairs with the bar stools from the island

• He turned the boys’ milk green

• He left green footprints in the washroom, and didn’t even bother to flush after using the toilet

• And, he painted some of M’s animals green (luckily he used washable paint!)

Leprechaun Trap

After being the victim of so many pranks, M decided it was time to catch this tricky leprechaun and make him tell us where he hid  his pot of gold. So, how do you go about capturing a sneaky leprechaun? With an equally sneaky leprechaun trap of course!

Before we could actually start making our leprechaun trap, we had to figure out what kind of trap to make; should we make one with a trap door, or a drop-down cage? What should we use to lure the leprechaun in? In order to help M make these tough decisions and to inspire him further, I showed him a variety of different Youtube videos about kids who had built leprechaun traps of their own. Ultimately, he decided a trap with a drop -down cage was the way to go!

Materials

I went into our recycle bin and gathered some materials I thought we might need: an empty diaper box, a paper towel tube, and a plastic berry container. In addition to these items we also used: pipecleaners, cotton balls, green and blue paint, embossing thread (fishing wire or dental floss would also work well), foam shamrock stickers, and a small container filled with chocolate coins.

Building the Leprechaun Trap

The first thing I did was cut one side of the diaper box off, along with some of the flaps. Then I stapled the paper tower tube to one corner of the box, and tied the embossing thread through the middle holes of the plastic berry container. Then I gave M some paint so he could paint the ground of the trap green and the sky blue.

When the paint was dry, M glued on some cotton ball clouds and added some foam shamrock stickers. I also gave him a package of pipe cleaners and had him pick out the colours he needed for a rainbow so I could glue it in place using the hot glue gun. M started singing the rainbow song he learned a few days ago, and was able to assemble the rainbow colours in the correct order with no help from me! I know the song isn’t completely accurate (they substitute purple and pink in place of violet and indigo) but it’s good for preschoolers because it mentions colours they are already familiar with. Technically we didn’t have a blue or a purple, but rather just an indigo pipe cleaner, so M’s rainbow turned out as: red, orange, yellow, green, indigo, pink. Oh well, you make do with what you have, right? We can only hope the leprechaun doesn’t notice our glaring error! 😉 Check out the fun rainbow activities/experiments we did a couple of days ago, by clicking here.

To set the trap, I just fed the embossing thread (or dental floss/ fishing wire) through the top of the paper towel role, and out the bottom, so the berry container was suspended. Then I placed the container of coins on top of the loose end of the thread. When the coins are removed, the berry container drops down to trap the leprechaun!

Demonstration

Here is a video of M testing out his leprechaun trap:

I’m hoping the leprechaun isn’t as quick as the Lego man in M’s demonstration! 😀

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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