STEM Leprechaun Trap Project

 

STEM Leprechaun Trap Project

One of my FAVORITE projects of the school year is having students make a Leprechaun Trap just in time for St. Patrick's Day! My students and families talk about it being their favorite too!


I started this project because I wanted a fun and engaging activity to tie into our measurement unit that let students practice measuring things while also using academic vocabulary to go along with it.  I also wanted to include other content areas as well - including science, reading and writing too!

Making Leprechaun Traps

I like to send this project home for students to work on with their families but it could also be done in class with students working in a small group or individually.  There's a letter to send home to parents to give them information about the project.  I make the project optional and have the students bring them back by at least the 16th so we can set up our traps that afternoon.

I have students share the traps with the class - we measure different parts of them so we can continue working on our academic vocabulary.

Kicking Off the Project

To start off the project, I print out a tiny letter from "Lucky the Leprechaun" that shows up mysteriously in our classroom at the beginning of March.  The letter is a cute little rhyme saying Lucky is coming to our classroom to look for gold.  Later that day, I show kids that a large envelope showed up in my mailbox in the office - the envelope is form the "Leprechaun Lookout Agency." Inside the package, there is a letter that asks for our help in catching Lucky.

The "Leprechaun Lookout Agency" continues to send us "missions," materials, books, and so on leading up until St. Patrick's Day.  The kids LOVE this part the most - they cannot wait to know if the LLA sent us another package and what might be inside.  Sometimes I put new St. Patrick's Day themed math centers in the envelope for the LLA to send to us, other times it's books about catching Leprechauns or about building traps.  One of my favorites is putting my St. Patrick's themed mini erasers into the envelope and then dumping them out onto the table in front of the students! Then we use these mini erasers for the "Shamrock Shake" decomposing math center included in the project.

Optional Time Line

There's an optional timeline included so you can see some ideas of what I do with the project during those two weeks of school between March 1 and March 17.  This timeline includes what I have the Leprechaun Lookout Agency send us during that time as well as some of the exploration we are doing along with the project.

Science and Engineering

One of the academic vocabulary pieces in our measurement unit is "capacity" which can be a hard concept for primary grades! So to learn more about capacity, I included an activity where students can explore capacity using different sized containers and water.  In the activity, the students compare the capacity of the different sized containers to the capacity of a soda can - seeing which ones hold more and which ones hold less.

Building the trap to catch the Leprechaun involves students to think critically about the design and construction of their trap.  Many of my students came up with clever ways to "trap" the Leprechaun in a way where he wouldn't be able to get out.  The project naturally aligns itself for students to think with purpose and intention about the design of their trap.

Math

Since our measurement unit is a math unit, I included a Measurement Journal where students practice our academic vocabulary and also get to use a "Shamrock Ruler" to measure objects.  My students LOVE using their Shamrock Rulers to go around the room and measure objects.  The journal makes it easy to include different explorations related to measurement all in one place - you can read more about why I LOVE using journals in the classroom by reading this post!

Included is also a game called "Shamrock Shake" (mentioned above) where my students use shamrock, pots of gold, and rainbow shaped mini erasers to practice addition and decomposing. For this, my students get a number of mini erasers and a shamrock shake page.  They hold the erasers in their hand and then shake them out onto the page.  Then they write a number sentence to go along with how many erasers are ON the shamrock and how many are OFF of the shamrock.  I love doing this because it helps build fluency in their addition skills.  A lot of times I have students use 10 erasers so they can practice using Friends of 10 but I will also differentiate the amount of erasers the students get as needed.

Writing

We also write about our traps.  There are some pages included for students to answer specific questions about their trap and to write about how their trap will catch Lucky.  The kids and parents put so much creative thought into their traps that it is always fun to read how the designed their trap to lure Lucky the Leprechaun!

There are also pages included for students to write using transition words about how they almost caught Lucky the Leprechaun. 

Books with Leprechauns and Leprechaun Traps

There are so many fun books that are great additions to this project! Here are some of our favorites each year.
        

One of my favorite parts of the STEM Leprechaun Project is how much it builds excitement for learning and a shared experience for the students.  The get so excited to tell me about their traps as they are making them - telling me when they are going to get their materials, what creative ideas they came up with to trap Lucky the Leprechaun, and how their mom or dad helped them!  It's just an all around fun project to be involved in!

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