Making a Leprechaun Trap

We made a leprechaun trap today!  I first heard of the idea from friends and thought it sounded great — creative, fun, St. Patrick’s Day themed — but my husband was skeptical, “You are going to ask the kids if they want to build something to trap a leprechaun in?  Doesn’t that seem mean?  And a little creepy for little kids?”  “No!” I assured him, “It will be fun.  They love to use their imaginations and build things!”

And I was right they do.  They were all excited to figure out what we could make and how we could do it.  We came up the idea of decorating a box top with all of the things a leprechaun would like so he would notice it.  Then we were going to lean it against a stack of gold coins we knew he would try to take.  When he pulled them out the box would then fall on top of him.

Perfect, right?  Absolutely.  Until we started.  And they wanted to know if this was going to hurt the leprechaun.  And what we were going to do with the leprechaun once we trapped him.  Ummm.  Seemed like my husband wasn’t totally off base.  After some discussion we decided that we would still try and catch one so we could talk to him and then let him go home just like we do with bugs.  And to ensure we were being completely humane (or leprechaun-ane) we added some little windows to ensure he could look out and be able to breathe.

 By the end they were quite excited at the thought of meeting a new little friend.  Meanwhile, I was feeling a little guilty for being the one leading the charge to trap poor helpless little leprechauns!  Maybe next year we’ll make leprechaun houses…

Have you made a leprechaun trap before?  How did it go over in your house?