Did you know that if you catch a leprechaun he has to give you all of his gold? Did you know that people actually build leprechaun traps every year? Growing up near Chico, I thought the only St Pat's day tradition was getting sloshed, but when Kate came home with an assignment to build a leprechaun trap, I learned about a fun tradition that doesn't involve alcohol...or green food coloring for that matter. Yay! I googled leprechaun traps and learned so much! Apparently they're a pretty big deal among school children. Every St Patrick's Day kids (and parents) set to work making leprechaun traps in the hopes of catching one of the little guys, but they wake up on St Pat's day only to find that the sneaky leprechaun got away. Most likely, they'll find that the trap has been sprung (evidence that it was a close call), and that in his struggle to get away, the leprechaun carelessly dropped some of his goodies (like chocolate coins, green glitter, or stickers...even a note), which your child will be quite excited to find!
I'm going out on a limb now and assuming that the leprechaun won't read this post. Here is how the trap works:
The leprechaun will encounter our trap and notice the first ladder. Once he reads the "Don't ClimB ladder!" sign, he will naturally want to climb the ladder...because leprechauns are mischievous. When he encounters the second ladder he will want to climb it, too; there is a bag of gold up on that hat that he won't be able to resist. Once he is on the hat he will notice a rainbow slide, and a sign reading "Do not slide on rainbow!" Naturally, he will want to slide on the rainbow. He knows that pots of gold are hidden at ends of rainbows. He won't be able to resist. But here is the trick: the clouds at the end of the rainbow are concealing a hole we cut into the box. Sneaky! When the leprechaun slides down the rainbow, he will slide straight through the clouds and into our net! Don't worry, we placed a small pillow under the net. Katelyn was concerned for him to have a soft landing. After all, we don't want to hurt him, just want his gold.
I can't tell you how excited the kids are to catch a leprechaun. As soon as Littleman woke up the next morning he came knocking on my door, "Mom, let's go see if we caught a...what's that thing called again!?"
**If you googled onto this site in search of leprechaun trap ideas, let me tell you that this took us about 8 long hours to plan and put together. That takes some of the fun out of leprechaun trap building. You might want to build something simpler...(we were just really set on incorporating the butterfly net). The base is a cardboard box wrapped in green papers. The box is laid on its side, opening to the back. We cut a hole and taped the butterfly net underneath, inside the box. The hat is an empty oatmeal container wrapped in green scrapbook paper. I cut a 12" round of green fabric for the brim of the hat, but paper would work as well. Katelyn painted the rainbow. The clouds are fiberfill. For the ladders, I hot glued jumbo popsicle sticks (rails) and lollipop sticks (rungs). We cut coins out of golden card stock and wrapped them in a bit of tulle. We cut off one of the flaps of the box and decorated it to look like sky and propped it up against the hat.
Have fun leprechaun hunting!!
