Last week as we were talking about St. Patrick's day, it was let slip that the intermediate teachers had been complaining about mysterious messes that happened in their classrooms over the weekend- when everything was locked up tight. And as we had read a book about a cheeky leprechaun already, Team Awesome was already aware that it was the time of year a little trickster might visit. It wasn't long before someone mentioned catching our tiny visitor and you know Team Awesome- they wanted a piece of that action pronto! Which led to a flurry of activity later that morning as the children first planned then built their own traps to catch the little man. If you picked up your child at the end of the day you might have heard about the traps placed willy-nilly around the class, looking mostly like pieces of recycling that hadn't been picked up but boy did a lot of thought and effort go into them. If we didn't catch the leprechaun that evening we would have to revisit and revise our traps as many of them didn't actually have doors that closed. So while a few traps had some bait in the form of shiny things to lure the fairy creature inside, there was nothing to keep the leprechaun in the trap after he stole the bait and had a nap. And that's what scientists do- revisit and revise ideas if they don't work the first time!
As the children entered our learning spaces the next morning they noticed a wee bit of untidiness- books and blocks spilled, papers on the floor, pencils left about and things turned upside down. There were squeals of delight and excitement as the children checked their leprechaun traps and discovered multi-coloured glitter around their traps and our classroom. But alas, no leprechauns. As we looked around we discovered the smarty pants had left a note and a few little green handprints. And of course, very big messes, which the children worked together to tidy. We resolved to catch him that night. To that end, we shared how our traps were supposed to work, why we thought they didn't, and how we could improve them and that afternoon some of us spent some time upgrading our designs while others had had enough of the sneaky little guy and played with centres. A few of us made totally new traps. Bigger and better traps. And a few of us tried to be sneakier when setting them up- we put them in places the unsuspecting leprechaun was sure to go based on where he went the previous night or we tried to camouflage them. Our fingers were crossed that we would be luckier that evening than we were the night before.
Well, that sneaky little leprechaun foiled us again despite our cleverly hidden(?) traps. And not only that, but he also felt the need to leave shiny shamrocks in our traps and green and gold clovers all over our room and have a bubble bath in our sink (and leave unmentionables in our toilet). If I didn't know better I would say our resident compact green guy invited his friends and they had a big party and forgot to clean up afterwards. We were excited to find he left us a nifty poem stating that he won't be returning (Boo!) and part of his pot of gold (Yay!). Team Awesome was glad he came to visit us but sad to learn he wouldn't be sticking around. We talked about setting up our traps at home in the hopes that we might catch a leprechaun there. If you did happen to catch one, don't forget they disappear in the blink of an eye- and please don't give him directions to our classroom. One leprechaun party a year is quite enough.
** We have so many pictures and videos around these activities that it was impossible to make them into a video to show you the fun we had. Please look at the March photo album in Google to see them and share in a bit of the magic.
As the children entered our learning spaces the next morning they noticed a wee bit of untidiness- books and blocks spilled, papers on the floor, pencils left about and things turned upside down. There were squeals of delight and excitement as the children checked their leprechaun traps and discovered multi-coloured glitter around their traps and our classroom. But alas, no leprechauns. As we looked around we discovered the smarty pants had left a note and a few little green handprints. And of course, very big messes, which the children worked together to tidy. We resolved to catch him that night. To that end, we shared how our traps were supposed to work, why we thought they didn't, and how we could improve them and that afternoon some of us spent some time upgrading our designs while others had had enough of the sneaky little guy and played with centres. A few of us made totally new traps. Bigger and better traps. And a few of us tried to be sneakier when setting them up- we put them in places the unsuspecting leprechaun was sure to go based on where he went the previous night or we tried to camouflage them. Our fingers were crossed that we would be luckier that evening than we were the night before.
Well, that sneaky little leprechaun foiled us again despite our cleverly hidden(?) traps. And not only that, but he also felt the need to leave shiny shamrocks in our traps and green and gold clovers all over our room and have a bubble bath in our sink (and leave unmentionables in our toilet). If I didn't know better I would say our resident compact green guy invited his friends and they had a big party and forgot to clean up afterwards. We were excited to find he left us a nifty poem stating that he won't be returning (Boo!) and part of his pot of gold (Yay!). Team Awesome was glad he came to visit us but sad to learn he wouldn't be sticking around. We talked about setting up our traps at home in the hopes that we might catch a leprechaun there. If you did happen to catch one, don't forget they disappear in the blink of an eye- and please don't give him directions to our classroom. One leprechaun party a year is quite enough.
** We have so many pictures and videos around these activities that it was impossible to make them into a video to show you the fun we had. Please look at the March photo album in Google to see them and share in a bit of the magic.
