Leprechaun Traps & Tricks

I am not Irish. And probably because I'm not Irish, I wasn't raised where St. Patrick's Day was a huge deal. Sure, we always wore green for luck, but mostly that was also so as not to spend the day getting pinched, either. Probably another reason St. Patrick's Day wasn't so huge to us was also because my birthday is the day AFTER St. Patrick's Day. But I digress...

As is turns out, lots of people celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Irish or not. And now that I'm a parent, I have to admit to getting into it a bit more. Irish or not. Some mom's I know go so far as to set "traps" so the leprechauns can't come play tricks on them. Did you know leprechauns are tiny crazy little things and love to play tricks on people? Yeah well me either. But apparently they've been known to do things like turn the gallon of milk green, toilet water green, leave green confetti all over people's houses, leave green ice cubes in the freezer, etc. Therefore, to avoid being tricked by the leprechaun, it is a good idea to create a trap for them.

Enter our Kindergarten Family Project. Each family had to create a leprechaun trap, which we had to send in today. And since I was out of town for 4 days over the weekend, this was left up to Mr. Monogram to execute. We were told in our project instructions that leprechauns do NOT obey signs or directions, that they like sparkly and shiny things, lots of sweets, and of course, gold. So after Mr. Monogram and the boys put most of the trap together, the boys and I completed the final decor after school and If I do say so, I think we've got our self a mighty fine leprechaun trap.

{The outside of our trap says "NO Leprechauns Allowed!" The leprechaun will enter through the tiny door w/ the gold pathway where there is a sign that tells him NOT to stand on that stack of coins and pull that green string for more gold coins. When he pulls it, because of course they do NOT follow directions, it dumps over the bucket with the marble, the marble goes down the steps, into the yellow bucket, and the trap falls down on TOP og the leprechan who us standing on the stack of gold coins. TRAPPED!}

At our school, the kindergartner's will lay their leprechaun traps outside their rooms along the hallway, and their 8th grade buddies will come fill them up with treats and so forth to make it look like leprechauns came. Cute, right? Then tomorrow, while they are in Music class, the homeroom mom's are coming in and "tricking" out the classroom and bringing in green lemonade, green cupcakes, etc. I can't wait to see their little faces.

Now, if you want to set up some tricks of your own, check out this, & this. And for trap ideas you can easily whip up today, go look at this, and this. Happy St. Paddy's Day!