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Leprechaun Trap Ideas for St. Patrick’s Day

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Building a leprechaun trap is a fun and easy STEM activity for kids in early elementary school. You can do this at home or in the classroom.

What is a leprechaun trap?

The idea is that you build some kind of contraption that includes a box or a basket that could hold a leprechaun, then you add some kind of bait under the trap like gold coins, chocolate, drawings of rainbows, etc.

You leave it out overnight before St. Patrick’s Day, and the next day the trap will be sprung. The leprechaun got away but they may have left treats, or done a little mischief in the room (or both!).

One year in my daughter’s class the leprechaun left washable paint footprints all over!

If you need some inspiration for building your own leprechaun traps, there are so many great ideas online. The key elements, as laid out in this post from The Best Ideas for Kids, include:

  • Bait
  • A ladder if needed to climb into the trap
  • Decorations including shamrocks and rainbows
  • Something to trap the leprechaun in like a box, bottle or hat

That post has some cute and really easy ideas that would be great for younger kids. If you want something more elaborate, check out the ideas at Happiness is Homemade (I particularly love the Lego leprechaun house, which wouldn’t even have to be a trap).

Artsy Mama has a great upcycled leprechaun trap made from things in the recycling bin.

Lolly Jane has another fun roundup of leprechaun trap crafts. One of my favorites is this top hat trap from The Suburban Soapbox, which is mostly made out of poster board and construction paper, so it’s a pretty low-budget option that is still really cute.

Have you ever made a leprechaun trap? I’d love to hear about the design you made and what happened when the trap was sprung!

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

10 Fun Ways to Decorate Easter Eggs

If you’re looking to go beyond the dye kits at the store for your Easter eggs this year, I’ve collected 10 fun ways to dye or otherwise decorate your Easter eggs. These are fun STEM and craft experiments for kids and are pretty fun for grownups, too.

One of the most popular ways to dye Easter eggs while still using items from the store is to use natural dyeing methods with vegetables, fruit and spices. I’m sharing links to a few different posts here because people have slightly different methods or recipes for achieving different colors, but the basic procedure explained by Real Life at Home is a good one. 

Check the recipe suggestions at Kaleyann, Mommypotamus and Your Home Based Mom, and let kids raid the kitchen or pick some fun things from the grocery store to try. Make sure to keep good records so you can repeat the process next year!

Another easy method to try is dyeing eggs with food coloring. This can make more vibrant colors than you tend to get from natural dyes, but it’s still an easy method and can be done with things you already have in the house. Check out these tips from Studio DIY to get started.

If you want to use food coloring to color your eggs but want to give them a different look, try this method of dyeing eggs with rice from Kids Activity Zone. Or get a marbled look by dyeing eggs with whipped cream, like these from My Home Based Life. So fun and messy!

For less traditional looking eggs, try dyeing eggs with old silk ties or shirts. The pattern from the fabric transfers to the egg in a unique way that’s a lot of fun to try. Get the instructions from A Thrifty Mom.

Use markers and coffee filters for an easy, pretty, low-mess way to color eggs. Learn how at The Savvy Sparrow. Or bring some nature to your egg decorating with these pretty pressed flower eggs from Little Pine Learners.

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