Thursday, March 13, 2014

Celebrating Leprechauns with a St. Patrick's Day Freebie!

I don't know about you, but my students believe in leprechauns. They get VERY animated when they tell you about the characteristics of a leprechaun and sometimes even have had experiences with them. I think it is a big third grade tradition, in our district, to create and set leprechaun traps because all the students have done it in the past. Although we don't do it in 4th, many still do it at home. To help spread the leprechaun spirit, I like to play some jokes on my students and work on leprechaun themed activities.

While learning idioms this week, we worked on a cute bulletin board. The students LOVED this activity and their poems were SO creative!
(You can get it in my TPT store).


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Bulletin-Board-and-Writing-Activity-If-I-Had-a-Leprechaun--533875

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-Bulletin-Board-and-Writing-Activity-If-I-Had-a-Leprechaun--533875


I've heard these little leprechaun people are tricky and like to make messes (kinda like my 4th graders)- so a few times, this month, the students entered the classroom to find a surprise. There was a huge mess that included green glitter scattered all around the room. Markers, crayons, highlighters, and pencils were all mixed up in bins and there were trails of little feet prints EVERYWHERE...even on the white board. As my students know...I am a neat freak, so I would NEVER allow such a mess in the classroom. We quickly started to clean up while the students checked for other clues in the classroom. 

A few days went by before the cleaver little man returned. He decided to switch up the student's belongings in their desk. Of course nobody realized this until we had to take out our reading notebook and mass confusion set over the room. The looks on their faces when someone announced it must have been a trick played on them by the leprechaun was PRICELESS. 

I had a bunch of old plastic gold coins from an old behavior management system. To motivate my students to read, some of my motivated students just happened to find a piece of gold inside their Just Right Book. The coins actually fell out when they opened their book. These students were SO excited and boy did the other kids start reading.  As a reward the other students who really focused that day found a coin in their desk when they returned from lunch.

Another odd occurrence in room six this month was when the students returned back from activity period and EVERY student's pencil had disappeared only to be replaced with a green and silver shamrock pencil. We all decided this was our tiny friends way of apologizing for his sneaky behavior over the past few days.

I am still shocked that fourth graders really believe in this, maybe they don't and just want to see the silliness I come up with. Either way, it's fun for all of us, and I know it is something they will always remember about fourth grade. Tomorrow, while I am out at a PBIS meeting, the students will get a special surprise at snack time! Our leprechaun is leaving bags of Lucky Charms for the students to snack on during our Friday Read Around the Room Time!

Next week, on St. Patrick's Day, my students are going to find one of these cute prizes attached to something else (I'm not quite sure what yet because I have to check out the Dollar Store's St. Patty's Day selection), but I already printed these out. You can grab them from my TPT store for free by clicking on the image below! Enjoy!

 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Leprechaun-Desk-Cards-Freebie-Positive-reinforcement-for-clean-desks-595268

I know I am all set for St. Patrick's Day in my classroom! If you want to check out some other fun ideas for celebrating St. Patrick's Day in the classroom, check out my friend Jenny's page Suntans and Lesson Plans!

http://suntansandlessonplans.blogspot.com/2014/03/whooo-is-ready-for-st-patricks-day_8.html

2 comments:

  1. Those sneaky little leprechauns sure do like to make messes! I think the one that sprinkled gold glitter ALL over my classroom was the peskiest of them all! I'm glad he or she...hasn't returned in several years. Silly little things!
    Alison

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for linking up! I have never tried the whole tricky leprechaun, but I might have to give it a shot.

    Enjoy your weekend!

    Jenny
    Suntans and Lesson Plans

    ReplyDelete

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