Sunday, March 18, 2007

The Leprechaun Trap

For St. Patrick's Day, Nathan's class was assigned to build a leprechaun trap. To do so, the children first learned about leprechaun behavior.

"They like gold."

"They like to play tricks."

"They are very tricky."

"They are disobedient."

"They are little."

Wendy worked with Nathan to brainstorm several ideas. Here are the highlights which Nathan shot down as infeasible. 1 - Place C-3PO in the vegetable steamer to attract the leprechaun. When the leprechaun gets in, C-3PO can close the vegetable steamer and trap the leprechaun. Rejected because the trap has to work. 2 - Place gold in the vegetable steamer to attract the leprechaun and Nathan can close it when the leprechaun gets in. Rejected because Nathan can't always watch the trap. 3 - Place gold underneath a box that is propped up by a stick with a string attached. Nathan would wait underneath Mrs. Woods' desk and pull the string when a leprechaun gets to the gold. Rejected because Mrs. Woods' desk is open underneath and the leprechaun will see Nathan. So we built a trap from a shoe-box. The shoe-box was flipped over and three sides of a square were cut into the box to make a trap-door. The leprechaun walks up on top of the upside-down shoe-box and when he sees the gold that is on top of the trap door, he steps on the trap-door and is caught in the box. We covered it with foil and glitter (a substance that I feel should be banned). Fun Times.

4 comments:

Linda Bennion said...

Glitter is forever...just like cockroaches, but it is prettier.

Nathan is adorably brilliant. I love this child and I love his parents. You are doing a splendid job as parents who listen and encourage thinking....way to go.

Love MOM

Don and Amy Bennion said...

Pretty fun to have kids that are developing their minds like that. Sounds like a fun project. Tell Nathan it sounds like he had a great idea!
Amy

Anna B said...

That is so cute! I think that the trap door is an ace plan, and that Nate is sure to catch a leprechaun.

Robert & Ann Bennion said...

Very innovative! I wonder if a trap door would work on Snipes too?? Just a thought ;)