Catching a Leprechaun: Leprechaun Traps & St. Patrick's Day Fun in the Classroom!

I have to admit, I don't usually do much for St. Patrick's Day. I mean, I tend to wear green and grab a Shamrock Shake but that's about it. Last year, my coteaching partner and I decided to do more than usual for March. We decided to do some academic tasks centered around catching a leprechaun.

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First, I read students the book, How to Catch a Leprechaun by Adam Wallace.  I love starting off with a book because it really gets the students' imaginations going!

After I read the book, we brainstormed some ideas on how we would catch a leprechaun. You can do this whole group on chart paper. After this, students can fill out their graphic organizers and draw their leprechaun traps. These pages are included as a freebie, so keep on reading to grab them! ☺️

This graphic organizer follows the same sequence as the books below!

Once we filled out our graphic organizer, we started our books! Students wrote their own books on how they would catch a leprechaun. I differentiate these by giving some students sentence starters that follow the graphic organizer. I also add picture pages too!

"I would look in the drawers. I would move the clothes. I would look under the clothes."

Students designing their traps.

Students design their leprechaun traps.

"I would keep him. I would play a game with him."

Students really enjoyed writing their books and they turned out SO cute! Grab the books here!

Finally, the most exciting part...students got to make their leprechaun traps! We put students in small groups to make their leprechaun traps. You can collect items from your home to make the traps or ask parents for donations too! Here are some ideas of easy and almost all free supplies you can use:

Check out some of my favorite Amazon finds and ideas for leprechaun traps here!

What I love most about these leprechaun traps is that you can just give students supplies and let them go! It's incredible to see what they come up with! I love to hear students explain how their leprechaun traps work too! Check out some of the awesome leprechauns traps our students created below!

I love this one! They cut a little trap door under the rainbow and coin!

Make sure you put these leprechaun traps together before specials or a break like lunch/recess. That way the leprechaun can visit your classroom! While your students are away, go through and pull strings, take gold coins, and knock over chairs and boxes. Make it look like the leprechaun visited their trap but didn't get caught! 

The leprechaun was here! 

Please clear this one with your custodian first, but you can always sprinkle the traps with some glitter too!

Sometimes I can be a little extra...after our traps had been destroyed, I pretended to call our secretary to see if she could print out the video footage from the camera in our classroom. That way, we could see what happened to the traps! 😂No, we don't really have a camera...

While the kids were at lunch and recess, I borrowed a step ladder and took some photos of the classroom. 

Oh hi. 👋 Just up here taking pictures from our "camera"

If you look closely, you can see that I added a little leprechaun to the fake video footage. You can grab the video recording template for FREE. 

It's hard to "destroy" students' very creative leprechaun traps so don't forget to leave them something special from the leprechaun! Initially, I had planned to put these on their traps for after lunch but..ya know... I forgot...... so they went on their coats at the end of the day. I printed the tags and added a chocolate coin with some washi tape. 

Grab these free printable tags as a small gift from the leprechaun! 

Need more St. Patrick's Day fun? Click the photos below...

 

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