9 Leprechaun Trap Ideas For STEM

Have you ever tried to catch a leprechaun? Leprechauns are mischievous and magical little guys, so we have never actually gotten a good look at one. It’s a tradition now to build a St Patrick’s Day leprechaun trap and these leprechaun trap ideas below are the perfect place to start! Find out how to design and build a leprechaun trap for fun St Patrick’s Day STEM activities.

SIMPLE LEPRECHAUN TRAPS FOR KIDS TO MAKE

Find great ideas for making leprechaun trips this month! Learn how to make a leprechaun trap with easy ideas, tips, and suggestions.

HOW TO CATCH A LEPRECHAUN

One of the best parts of St. Patrick’s Day is designing and building the leprechaun trap! Big, small, tall, short, wide, or narrow! It doesn’t matter when it comes to this fun St Patrick’s Day STEM activity. Kids love trying to trap a leprechaun!

Set your leprechaun trap out the night before St Patrick’s Day and find out what a leprechaun leaves behind in a trap. Maybe some gold coins or a treasure or two!

A simple leprechaun trap can built from items you find around the house or inexpensive dollar store items. The fun is in coming up with design ideas using things you already have. There are tons of great ways to enjoy STEM on a budget! Check out our Leprechaun Trap STEM kit ideas.

Rainbows, a shamrock, small black pot, gold coins or lucky charms and plenty of the color green are fun things to include when making your leprechaun trap. My son suggested we buy 10 bags of skittles to leave in our leprechaun trap, but I mentioned that a leprechaun is only a wee little fellow!

Make sure to join us as we kick off the month of March with tons of St Patrick’s Day STEM activities, and plenty of awesome St Patrick’s Day slime recipes! Holidays are the perfect time to try new and engaging STEM activities!

Click here to get your free build a leprechaun trap printable!

HOW TO MAKE A LEPRECHAUN TRAP

Looking for ideas to make a leprechaun trap? Check out a fun way to use materials around the house to build a simple leprechaun trap! If you have a group of kids, encourage everyone to bring in a favorite container from the recycling bin at home for this easy project.

Turn this into an open ended St Patrick’s Day STEM activity. Make available an assortment of materials. Then have kids come up with a leprechaun trap design and plan it out. Next they can get into building their leprechaun trap, using math skills, testing ideas, problem-solving weak points, and inventing trapping mechanisms (simple machines).

Alternatively, follow our instructions below. Build this green felt hat leprechaun trap with a rainbow, colorful ladder and some gold coins as bait to catch a leprechaun.

You could also make a pair of leprechaun binoculars (toilet paper rolls glued together), so you can keep an eye out for him. Don’t blink you might miss him!

SUPPLIES:

Empty oatmeal container
Green, black and yellow felt
Cupcake liners
Colored craft sticks
Green embroidery thread
Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue pipe cleaners
Chocolate gold coins
Green glitter
Sharpie
Scissors
Hot glue/hot glue gun

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Containers: Set aside a variety of boxes or containers so you can have an assortment available when it’s time build your leprechaun traps. Good cartons to collect are assorted packaging boxes, shoe boxes, oatmeal canisters, cereal boxes, and egg cartons!

Ladder materials: Collect small items for building ladders such as twigs, sticks, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, LEGO pieces, straws or pipe cleaners.
Extra Items to make special features such as rainbows (construction paper, felt, paint, markers, or clay.)
Decide on your leprechaun bait. Are you going to go with gold coins, shiny pennies, skittles, Lucky Charms cereal or something else?
Do you plan to include a black pot like the ones pictured at the end of the rainbow? How about confetti?
What will be the trapping mechanism? A gate that closes, a hole to fall into, a stick that breaks, a box that falls or another idea?

LEPRECHAUN TRAP INSTRUCTIONS

STEP 1. Start by covering the outside of your oatmeal (or any) container in green felt or green paper and secure with hot glue. Alternatively, you can paint your container green, rainbow colors, or gold.

STEP 2. Take the lid off the top, trace it on a piece of green felt, cut out, place the lid back on and hot glue the felt to the top of the lid.

STEP 3. Draw a larger circle on the green felt, cut out and glue to the bottom of the oatmeal container.

STEP 4. Cut a long skinny piece of black felt, wrap and hot glue around the bottom of the “hat”.

STEP 5. Cut out a yellow rectangle, and then cut a rectangle out of its center. Glue to the black felt strip.

STEP 6. To make your rainbow ladder, glue enough craft sticks together lengthwise to be a little taller than the hat.

STEP 7. Carefully cut and glue colored pieces of craft sticks for the ladder steps and glue against the hat.

STEP 8. Glue your pipe cleaners onto the back of the hat in the shape and pattern of a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green and blue.

STEP 9. Set a handful of gold coins on top of the hat.

STEP 10: Leprechaun Pulley Trap

Now for the pulley trap system, glue 3 or 4 green craft sticks together lengthwise and one horizontally at the top and glue against the hat.

Poke a hole through the bottom of a green cupcake liner and tie a piece of string through the hole.

Wrap the string lightly around the top craft stick, hanging it over the hat. Pull the string to tighten up the trap. When the leprechaun comes you can let go of the string!

STEP 11. Cut a yellow craft stick and a square piece of felt. Write “free gold” on the felt and glue to the yellow craft stick. Sprinkle with glitter and glue against the hat.