Mom guilt and other factors have led me to attempt more crafts with my kids. You can read more about that here. This is our first project and thankfully, my friend Kim from Mom Tried It knows exactly how uncrafty I am, so she went super easy on me with this first project.
The Assignment
Things you will need: plastic laundry basket (just throw your dirty clothes on the floor), stick from the yard, piece of string or yarn, bait (you can use the marshmallows from Lucky Charms or plastic gold coins), the goodies (you can have the boys draw fake treasure maps to hidden gold – because leprechauns love gold or if you are feeling really ambitious have them paint rainbows on a piece of paper and put the end of the rainbow in an clean empty tin can that is wrapped with black construction paper. Then put some of the bait in the “pot” at the end of the rainbow).
The easy part: Let your boys come up with a trap to catch the Leprechaun. Prop up the laundry basket with the stick and add the string to pull the stick loose to drop the basket. Let them come up with elaborate ways to catch him. I bet they can.
It will be fun to watch them work together to get it done. They will talk about the science of getting things to work, and they will never ever know they are actually learning as they plan their attack.
This isn’t one of those crafts you feel obligated to keep or hang up. You can take pictures for memories, but when it is done you just put it up. It is like Santa Claus, Leprechauns only come out once a year. This is something that little boys will absolutely love!! Super easy, fun, and semi-messless. I bet they get their action figures and add some back up or reinforcements.
Our Results
How did Kim know that I’d have to empty my dirty clothes out of the basket before I started?
My boys loved making traps for Leprechauns. They are convinced that they are going to be rich from all the gold they are going to get. Though my 5 and 7 year old both really enjoyed drawing out their plans for how to create their traps.
–No, they weren't trying to hang a leprechaun, even though it sort of looks like it.
Like Kim pointed out, this isn’t a craft that you feel obligated to keep around- it’s just something to keep the kids busy: always a good thing.
The only drawback? Our newest kindergarten homework assignment is to create a Leprechaun trap to take into school. That one won’t be as simple as this one!
What we ended up doing was taking a small box(about 6×4) and stapling bright green paper to it. We used glittery shamrock foam stickers from Michael’s(on sale for $1.50) and put those on the box. We filled in the empty space with gold coins made with yellow glitter glue(that I somehow had in my house) and then filled the inside with shamrock garland(also on clearance at Michael’s for $1). The idea is that the sparkles and coins would attract the little Leprachaun(whose name is apparently “Lucky”). He’d want to climb in with all the clover and get trapped.
Well, in theory, anyway. What ended up happening was that Lucky took the garland out of the box and hid it in the teacher’s desk. Punk leprachaun. We were supposed to get his gold!
Other Ways to Keep Your Kids Busy
More from Kim:
Matching Upper and Lowercase Letters
Clothespin Colorwheel
Will you try to make a Leprechaun trap?
Baby Girl and I have to come up with one of these tomorrow. It’s a homework assignment. Hoping to make something a little smaller.
We have to do a smaller one for school, too.
Love this idea. I’ll have to pin this for later.
It really is easy! 🙂
This sounds like fun and totally easy!
See, something even us uncrafty moms can do!
Yeah, we’ve gotta come up with one for a homeschool group thingy on Friday. Only my son is 12. Not sure it’s going to seem quite as magical at this age!
Mine will probably be eye-rollers at that age.
Cute idea and looks like a lot of fun!
I love that they could do most of it on their own.
My kids try to catch a leprechaun every year! This looks like a fun idea for them to try and I love the fact that it is easy.
Sandy
So easy! Even for me. 😉
Great idea Kim!
Shell, for the homework assignment, I would probably do the same thing but with a small shoe box or something like that (think the “basket thing” on Mouse Trap)?
Hope you figure out something cool for them to take! Let us know how it goes.
Will probably post our school one on facebook!
Very cute! And I love that you don’t have to keep it! That is perfect for me.
My house has enough clutter- I love something like this.
It sounds like I will have to find a new place for my laundry!
Ha! I definitely had to move mine! Trying the one you sent me next week. Thanks for the gloves! 🙂
My Kiddo & I spent yesterday afternoon creating his trap. Second year in a row, so we had to come up with a different design. Eek. I wish I was a crafty mom who loved doing this stuff.
It’s worse when you have to send it in to school. At home, I could just let mine figure it out and not care what it looks like.
I have never done the whole “Leprechaun” thingy with my kids. I have friends who turn their house upside down like the “little gold diggers” would have done. Me, I just enjoy having my kids dress in green and be proud to be Irish. I am making a craft for them that I found on Pinterest this year.
Hope this link will show you it.
http://pinterest.com/pin/47569339784018845/
I haven’t done the make a mess thing either. That usually just happens naturally around here. 😉
That’s a super cute craft!
This is such a fun idea! I’m sure your boys loved it!
They had a lot of fun!
I love this! We might have to make this for the weekend.
We had to make a trap for school last year. If you need an idea, this is what we made… http://www.theumbels.com/2011/03/how-to-catch-leprechaun.html You can use a smaller box to make it easier. I just used what we had.
Shoot, am getting Sorry, the page you were looking for in the blog All You Need is Love does not exist. 🙁
Of course, they will probably capture your youngest in the basket just for fun!
Of course. 🙂
What a cute idea!
This is so much fun! I’m going to share this with some of my friends that have some younger kids that I know will be ALL over this. Actually, as I write this…it seems this would be something my husband would enjoy doing with my girls as well. They love building together and I am sure if they think that there will be some gold covered chocolate coins left behind in the trap, they will be all over it.
It was a fun one! 🙂 And so easy.
Such a cute idea; my mom mentioned doing one related to a kids book she had read and I think we’ll have to include it in our holiday celebration! Thanks for sharing; I like this new idea of yours!
Thanks!
Do you know the name of the book?
My kid has to make one of these. We gave him a shoebox. I hate this assignment, just hate it. I’m not a Santa person, and now the kid believes in leprechans? NOT FAIR. I’ve been telling him they aren’t reall ALL WEEK. No, I’m not spoiling his fun. He would have to actually give a shit what I said on the topic for that to happen. But seriously. When he doesn’t catch the leprechan his autistic little mind is going to do SUMMERSAULTS. And I hope they happen at school and his damned teacher can see WHY THIS MOM IS SO OPPOSED TO THIS STUPID IDEA.
Sorry. Your kids have cute plans, though and sound a lot more innocuous than my kid.
Well, we’ll have to see what happens when no leprechaun is caught at school.
Way to go crafty mom!
Ha! But this lets me fake it. 😉
How fun! Love that pic. You’re gettin’ your crafty on!
What a fun idea!
Definitely doing this! So fun.
That’s cute!
I remember when you had to make one of these last year, and you tweeted about it.
At our house, we make fairy houses (that might as well be called fairy traps, because Katarina wishes so much that a fairy would find her way into one of the houses). It sounds like y’all had just as much fun with your leprechauns as we do with our fairies.
I’d be tempted to steal the bait and throw the trap convincin’ the kiddos that the sneaky Leprechaun outwitted the trap. Ya know, like when the mouse gets the bait, throws the trap but doesn’t get caught???
I’m sneaky that way! Heeehehehehe! This is a great project sweetie.
God bless ya and have a grand time catchin’ that Leperchaun!!! :o)
Have a great day!
Your Leprechaun Trap is just such a great idea for kids I just about can’t stand it! Folks, your kids will remember this stuff, not the storebought stuff no matter how elaborate it might be. I’m wondering when it gets to be early Summer and the fireflies come out that their golden flashing color can be some kind of tie-in with the leprechauns that didn’t get caught?
Drawing really is the bets way to make kids busy.. 🙂 It always works!
I think you guys rocked this!!