The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day: Make a Leprechaun Trap!

Recently I had some time to myself (which was AWESOME but a rarity) so I headed to the bookstore to check out some St. Patrick’s Day and Easter Books. I looked through several that were too much for my kids, and some that were just, well, lame. But then I came across The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day by Natasha Wing. If you couldn’t figure out by the name, it is written much like Twas The Night Before Christmas.

I brought it home and we read it before bed that night and my daughter LOVED IT! I mean, I-had-to-read-it-again and I-have-to-read-it-multiple-times-a-day-now kind of love. Let me tell you what my daughter loves about it:

• It goes along like Twas The Night Before Christmas….a story she already knows and loves.
• In almost every picture, there is a least one leprechaun hiding. She will look at me and say “Where is the leprechaun Mommy??” and giggle.
• The story is about trying to catch a leprechaun…which is a pretty cool concept, right? It even has a page with a bunch of different leprechaun traps!
• The end makes her laugh (but I won’t give it away )

I also immediately fell in love with this book. Let me tell you why *I* Love it:

• It is FUNNY which means kids will be engaged on the story which = more likely to learn from it!
• The little leprechauns hiding are a GREAT opportunity to work on question asking/answering and working on locative concepts like on, under, next to, behind, etc.
• There is a TON of vocabulary you can target!! creature, stirring, “decked out”, shamrocks, charms, leprechaun, shiny, legend, traps, Irishman, nestled, bagpipes, clatter, stare, vanish, wink, footprints, giggling, wriggling, twinkled, trinket, coddler, fairy, tricky, lies, smooth, hard, shovel, pick, trick, fool, disappear, etc.
• It rhymes, which makes it easier for little ones to “fill in the last word” as you read

I decided that a fun activity to go along with this story would be to make our own Leprechaun trap! In the book the kids make several and there are pictures of them:

So we used one as an inspiration to make ours! Here it is!

How we made it:

First we hot glued felt around a mason jar

Then we tucked in the top

We made a rainbow out of felt and a ladder out of pipe cleaners

We glued extra magic wands (left from E’s birthday party) to the back of the rainbow to help prop it up in the jar

We placed the rainbow on top and hung the ladder on the side, so that the Leprechaun will climb up and fall in!

We had a BLAST making it together! We will put it out the night before St. Patrick’s day with something in it to entice him, and see if we can catch a little Irishman!

If you decide to make a Leprechaun trap, be sure to check out my post on how to work on language skills while doing crafts.

I HIGHLY recommend The Night Before St. Patrick’s Day! Have FUN!

Cheers!