A Visit from a Leprechaun

My husband still remembers the day a leprechaun made some mischief in his preschool classroom on St. Patrick's Day. He remembers that the leprechaun left green footprints and a silly mess in the room, and thought I should do something similar with my kids. I'm not sure why, but I was just a bit hesitant at first, and unsure of how to approach it in a meaningful and purposeful way. But in the end I gave it a try, and it turned out to be a fun way to recognize the holiday.

The leprechaun that visited our classroom left green footprints, but didn't make a mess. He was more of a friendly, curious sort. (This take turned out to be beneficial when one student was freaked out by the idea of an unknown creature spending time in our room).

However, he did leave us a note explaining that he came from far away Ireland to visit our classroom. He wanted to see what preschool was like, and he was also looking for a place to hide his golden treasure. He liked our school and wanted to hide his treasure in our classroom, so he asked if we would make a rainbow for him since he usually hid his treasure at the end of the rainbow.

He left the beginning of a rainbow on our train table, and hoped we could fill it up with colorful items to make it complete.

I had gathered up some colorful items and placed them in a bucket already, but invited the kids to use anything else that they found around the classroom as well. We made a pretty interesting rainbow!

At the end of center time, when our rainbow was finished, some magic happened. There was something underneath the rainbow.

It was some golden treasure!

So before snack time we popped the leprechaun's "gold,"

And had a tasty rainbow snack with popcorn clouds.

All in all, it wasn't the most traditional take on leprechauns, but it worked for us. The kids had some great "why" questions about leprechauns, and it made for some fun learning conversations throughout the day about Ireland and more traditional stories. During sharing circle at the end of the day, each of the kids told me what they would do if they ever caught a leprechaun. Most said they would ask for his gold and then be his friend. It was pretty cute. :)