Leprechaun Trap

St. Patrick's Day is big in our house. The leprechauns visit each year, turning our food green. The kids are invariably the greenest in their respective classrooms (Maura outdid herself with Riley's outfit). This year we had an extra activity - Megan's school project was to create a Leprechaun trap. We hear they're very crafty and hard to catch, but if you create a clever, fun trap, you might just be able to catch one.

Megan's idea was Leprechaun mini golf. She's been learning about golf in her sports class recently, and we went to mini golf a couple weeks ago. So, Megan likes mini golf, and the logic goes that leprechaun must like mini-golf too, and we can trap one if we make a nice little course. I tried to tell her that golf is more of a Scottish thing, but I suppose that's close enough.

Her plan for the trap was pretty complex. She drew up a schematic that involved tubes and such, but in the end we worked out a somewhat simpler solution involving lots of cardboard. The two-level course followed a U-shaped path, with a couple of bump obstacles and a wavy second half. A suspended plastic cage (formerly holding strawberries) made up the trap, while the ball came from some repurposed toy jewelry. Megan added some great decorations with colored pencils and a boatload of glitter to finish it off.