St. Patrick’s Day has become one of my favorite celebrations at preschool. The idea of these little elvish creatures sneaking into our classroom, leaving trails of glitter and causing mischief, totally captivates children’s imaginations. It takes but a moment to introduce this magical scenario, and the children just run with it!
With the help of their trusty leprechaun magnifying glasses, children found clues everywhere: glitter trails and green footprints and golden treasure left in the sensory tub. Once child exclaimed, “When you look at the glitter through the magnifying glasses it’s actually glowing!”
Further evidence that the leprechauns had come to visit: they upended furniture in the block room and left a little note…
Leprechauns are small, so you have to look for them in every nook and cranny…
“We found more clues! Footprints!”
It takes care and patience to sort out leprechaun treasure…
Once we knew that leprechauns were afoot, children made leprechaun traps…
…and took a scavenger hunt to find the leprechaun’s hidden gold.
Within all this magic, there were still technical questions to consider. And children had the explanations…
How do you catch a leprechaun? The traps need to be green with something shiny inside.
How did the leprechauns mix up the numbers on our calendar board? They stood on each other’s shoulders to reach the numbers, and the leprechaun on the top shouted directions to the one on the bottom.
How did they move our block room furniture around? Lots of leprechauns had to gather around it and work together.
How did they escape? Through a tiny hole in the wall!
Are you a leprechaun, Teacher?
“Well, look how tall I am. I’m much too big to be a leprechaun. And leprechauns have green hair!”
No, they decided leprechauns have brown hair, and therefore I was very likely a leprechaun: “Leprechauns can change size, ya know!”
And here’s my favorite quote of the whole day. As he was racing about the classroom, peering through his leprechaun magnifying glass and searching for clues, a little boy stopped in his tracks, looked up at me and declared, “Santa’s magic! Everything’s magic!!!”
Ah, if we all could spend our days with this feeling! What a gift to spend time with young people, who help us reconnect with all the joy, enthusiasm, and creativity that a sense of magic infuses in our lives.
And for the record, while I did sprinkle trails of glitter, I did not make any little green footprints…so perhaps the leprechauns are real after all…