PLAYGROUND
Have fun with your kids and try to trap a leprechaun this St. Patrick’s Day! We haven’t been successful yet, but this may be our year with the Ultimate Leprechaun Trap. We can do it with a trap that’s super easy to create in just a few steps. Now gather all your supplies and let’s begin!
WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
- Three sheets of green construction paper
- One sheet of purple construction paper
- One sheet of yellow construction paper
- One sheet of blue construction paper for the base
- Yellow Tape (optional, we used this as a decoration too)
- Tape or Glue for connecting your items
- Plastic coins (we had both green and gold)
- St. Patrick’s Day Accessories (plastic clovers or stars)
- Color Markers
- Cotton Balls or White Pom Poms
- Paper Straws
- Pipe Cleaners (assorted colors)
- Oatmeal Container (empty)
INSTRUCTIONS:
First, select any base color of your choice but be sure to use green for the hat portion since it represents St. Patrick’s hat. We’re going to cut the construction paper so it can fully cover the oatmeal bottle around the surface and secure it with glue or tape.
Next, cut a big circle for the base of the hat out of your green construction paper. Glue your cut-out pieces of construction paper to the oatmeal container so that its surface is covered. Glue the oatmeal container top down. The bottom of the oatmeal container will need to have a hole cut for the trap portion of this project. The Leprechaun won’t even see it coming since we will cover the hole with gold and rainbow decor as a distraction.
After finishing the green portion of your St. Patrick’s Day hat, you now want to add your buckle. Cut a piece of black construction paper to cover the bottom of the hat. To complete the buckle look, cut a yellow rectangle. Then cut another rectangle in the center of your yellow construction paper to form the style to look like a buckle on a hat.
Then, use the straws to create your ladder from the bottom of your hat to the top. Make sure to add glitter or any shiny objects to the ladder to entice your leprechaun.
Now it’s time to decorate and style your trap hat. You can add shiny clover embellishments, star glitter stickers, gold coins, and more. To form the rainbow at the top, use cotton balls for the clouds and colored pipe cleaners. Bend your pipe cleaners to create a rainbow from one end of the cotton ball cloud to the other end.
Last, we will write our sign for FREE GOLD and draw arrows that lead the pathway to the gold coins and the hole where the Leprechaun falls in. If our strategy works, he’ll follow the path of gold and shiny items up the ladder to the top of the hat, then get distracted by the rainbow and all the gold, and then fall into the hole.
Amanda Keefer
