St. Paddy's Day Fun!

Hope everyone had a fun St. Paddy's day!  My class sure did.  We tried our best to catch a leprechaun, but those rascally little fellows are so darn tricky!  This year my kiddos made their traps at home for a  homework project.  Wow!  They were awesome!  I think I will do it this way every year.  It gave them a over a week to think about a design and gather materials.  Doing this project in the classroom is fun, but we are limited to the resources on hand.  Here are some of the masterpieces that came in to our classroom this year...

Super cute!  The basket falls down to trap them.  Looks like he caught some gold!

Love the rainbow, the pot of gold,  and all the GLITTER!  Woo hoo!

Ahh, yes!  The ladder climbing into the hat.  And of course, those little fellows will completely ignore the sign.  They love to make mischief!

Very clever!  It almost looks like a play structure.  Down at the end of the ramp is a paper that covers the hole of the last TP tube.  I love this design!

Can you see the ring in the photo?  The leprechaun will reach up to grab it and then a fence made of sticks and string will fall down and trap him inside the box.  Got ya!

Oh my goodness!  Sparkles, shine, and glitter galore!  I love the sparkly pipe cleaner rainbow.  Don't know if you can see, but those are tiny gold coins scattered at the entrance.  Super cute!



We had so much fun reading books and talking about leprechauns!  We did a few other fun projects too.  I had seen this idea on Pinterest, of course, here is the pin: sight word rainbow.  This was actually a little tedious for some of my students.  So, after all the hard work, I thought we should use them for an art project.  They are really sweet:

And of course we did lots of writing!

(I would make him take me to his pot of gold!)

(I will keep him forever.)

(They are real.  They left coins at my house.)

(Yes, they are real because they left green glitter.)

All my students believed in leprechauns this year.  Not a skeptic in the bunch.  I was a little disappointed by that, but I shouldn't be surprised.   I love this writing prompt, though, because it is one they are passionate about and I always make sure there is evidence for them to  use in their thinking!  

Do you need some sweet practice pages to supplement your St. Patrick's Day activities in your classroom?  Look no further.  These pages are perfect for March in a kindergarten classroom and they have cute St. Paddy's graphics.  You can find it here: Print and Go! St. Patrick's Day Math and Literacy (NO PREP). Here's a little preview:

OK, here is your freebie.  If you would like to have your class make leprechaun traps for a homework project, this is what I sent home to families.  I wrote in the due date and signed it at the bottom before I made copies.  Have fun!

And this is the writing page that the kiddos complete to show their thinking:

Just click on either image above to get them for FREE!  May the luck o' the Irish be with you!
Happy Teaching!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

How do you catch a leprechaun?
We read several books about leprechauns so we could learn more about them.
Then we gathered up lots of good stuff, like above.  And we added:

You can use everyday things you have around the classroom to make a trap.   The green berry baskets were very popular, so were the paper towel tubes and tp rolls.  Just about anything can be used.  It is also a good idea to have some green paint:

and glitter is always fun:

Then you let kids use their imagination and support them with whatever help they need.  And you get amazing Leprechaun Traps built by five and six year old students!  Those are the best kind!
Here are a few photos of ours:

If your traps are set out on a table, it is a good idea to make leprechaun ladders for the little fellows to climb up on...

We didn't actually get any leprechauns, but we did see evidence that they stopped by the classroom.  And they left us some gold! YUM!

We had lots of fun this week reading stories and talking about ideas related to this theme.  The sweeties wrote about why they are lucky.  I was so impressed with how most of my students immediately knew how to finish this prompt.  Boy, we sure do have so much to feel lucky about:

"I'm going to cach a leprechaun."

"my mom found a four lef klofr"

We also had a very thoughtful discussion about whether leprechauns are real.  It is a very tricky question.  There are many things that we believe in even though we don't see them... 
Do you believe in leprechauns?  Here are some of our ideas:

Do you need some sweet practice pages to compliment your St. Patrick's day activities in your classroom?  Look no further.  This is a great set of pages for March in kindergarten that cover lots of math and literacy skills.  They are fun and engaging with cute St. Paddy's graphics.  Most are interactive with cutting and gluing, dabbing, or coloring.  Hope they are a help to you.  You can find them right here: Print and Go! St. Patrick's day Math and Literacy (NO PREP).  You can see a little preview below.

I hope you had a wonderful St. Paddy's day.
May the luck of the Irish be with you!
Happy Teaching!