Better LUCK next time

Logan turned St. Patrick's Day into a full fledged holiday in our house. I blame/credit his kindergarten teacher because she filled his head with all these stories about catching Leprechauns and getting their gold. You may remember last years trap attempts. This year he was at it again...the box, jar, can collecting started about March 1, designing took place off and on over the next few weeks and then of course there was the actual set up, the night before.

This trap used a gold painted rock as bait. The idea being that when that crafty leprechaun grabbed the gold, the box would fall and trap him. That engineering needed a little more testing.This was a favorite. The sign out front says "Bank". The concept here is that those little green men will assume this is a real bank and simply leave their gold for safe keeping, duh!

And what's St. Patrick's Day without ye ol' potato trapHere is Caden's attempt...camouflage is the word you are looking for, right?

So what was the result of all these fancy contraptions...let's see...

Those little elves are tricky! Most of the gold bait was nabbed but they left yummy treats!

After a few chocolate coins, we gobbled up some rainbow waffles and trotted off to school

We wrapped up our St. Paddy's Day celebration with Corned Beef and Cabbage a la Grandma. It was a tasty meal but apparently induced great thirst... Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Leapin' Leprechauns

Preparation for St. Patrick's Day started about a week after Valentine's day. You may remember last years attempt to catch a little green man. Well the interest and enthusiasm only grew stronger this year. A couple weeks ago, while at the library, Logan asked to find a book about Leprechauns, so he could learn all their interests, in order to build a better trap this year. So we read and read and read some more about Irish folklore.

We did a few crafts, green of course and Logan started work on his traps. Traps, traps and more traps...5 to be accurate This is the preparation of the pit trap, ready to catch him a leprechaun!

Here is one of the signs he made to show those little green guys where to go to find their "gold" ...this was the result of a little Gaelic goggling and realizing that translating Logan's letter would take a bit more effort than the author was willing to put forth.

You also may not notice the potato he used to help lurer his prize. This one is a favorite...an old shoe...because Leprechauns are believed to be the shoemakers for fairies...

Ta-Dah! Those sneaky leprechauns found Logan's traps and they stole all his gold! But they left him some chocolate coins and a stuffed green little man was trapped in the pit.

In celebration of the day, we treated ourselves to a rainbow breakfast. Top o'the mornin' to ya! We concluded our St. Paddy's day with green rice krispie treats, after our dinner of corned beef sandwiches. It was a fantastic St. Patrick's Day and believe it or not, Logan is already talking about next years traps.

Hoodwinked

It was an action packed St. Patricks day that actually started yesterday when Logan got home from school. They had read a few books about leprechauns and he was convinced he could catch one. So for the next 3 hours he built traps. He told me that HE wouldn't be hoodwinked by any leprechaun.

While building he also discovered a mysterious trail of pennies that lead him around the backyard until it eventually stopped at the fence, near a patch of clover. He immediately set off next door to ask the neighbors if the trail continued on their side. (thank goodness they we're not home. That would have been tough to explain)

To kick off our St. Pattys Day we ate green waffles with green apple juice.Logan checked his traps immediately only to find the leprechaun made off with his 'gold' but left him a present...a set of funny looking teeth (that leprechaun needs to restock the prize cabinet).

I also taught a science lesson in Logan's class today. They are learning about matter and how it can chance from one phase to another. We made GREEN ICE CREAM!!!

We ended our day with some yummy corned beef and cabbage.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!