Let's Catch a Leprechaun

As soon as I walked into Mrs. Taylor's classroom, I stopped. Everyone stopped.

"Whoa, would you look at that," Mrs. Taylor said. "Looks like there's been a leprechaun here."

All the bags with our supplies in them were pulled off the back of the chairs.

"Class, he left us a riddle." Mrs. Taylor pointed to the board. "Why do people wear shamrocks around their necks?"

Ryan shrugged. "For good luck?"

"Guess we'll have to see if he lets us know the answer. Go ahead and pick up your supply caddies and put them back on your chairs."

"Looks like we better get our leprechaun traps in here," Kelly said.

"Yep. I'm still thinking about my trap." I picked up my supply bag and hung it back over my chair.

Amy tapped my shoulder. "Did you ask your mom and dad about Art Club tomorrow?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm going to stay. I can't wait."

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Later we got the answer to the riddle from our leprechaun. He wrote out that the reason people wear shamrocks is because regular rocks were too heavy. Very funny. 

On Tuesday we discovered that we actually had two leprechauns, Lucky and Liam. They had moved our book boxes and pulled out all of the books.

We only had a couple of traps, but everyone said they were planning on bringing their traps before Thursday. We needed to try and catch those two.

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That afternoon I followed Mrs. Taylor into Mrs. Sonon's room for Art Club.

Mrs. Church gave me a small square and showed me how to cut a design out of two sides and tape them to the opposite sides. "Now you have a tessellation. Let me show you how to trace it on your paper."

I followed her directions, filling my page. "Mrs. Church?" I held up my paper.

"What do you think yours looks like? Hmm, maybe a shark?" She studied it.

"I think it looks like a rooster!"

"Oh, you're right. Why don't you take that home to color? You can start working on your monster collage."

I walked around the tables and found the colors I wanted. Then I started cutting shapes to make funny monsters. "Hey, Jill, what do you think of this one? I'm thinking he needs stripes."

"Yeah, some stripes. Look." She held up her paper. "I gave this one spiked hair."

I giggled. "I like it."

McKenzie pointed to her page. "This one's got spots."

I nodded. My friends had been right. Art Club was fun.

"Let me have your monster collages. We'll finish those next time." Mrs. Church collected the papers.

"Aw, that went too fast."

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That night I worked really hard on my leprechaun trap. When I finished, I showed Momma and Daddy how it would work. "See? This sign tells the leprechauns that they can slide down into a bunch of gold coins. I used a paper towel tube for the slide, so they couldn't see what they are really sliding into. At the bottom is one of those sticky traps Momma used to catch a mouse one time."

"Clever," Daddy said.

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On Friday I told Mr. and Mrs. Brooks all about the week, trying to catch leprechauns. "One day they had been through all of the traps with candy. They ate the candy and threw the paper all over the place. They turned the behavior chart upside down. Mrs. Taylor showed them. She turned it back around and put their clips on red." I took a bite of a cookie. "Mrs. Taylor told us this afternoon that she hoped they would be on their way back to Ireland because they had caused enough trouble." I grabbed a piece of paper that I brought with me. "I wrote down the note they left us today. 'We've been tricky. It's been fun. See you next year, my wee ones. Liam and Lucky.' Can you believe that? Not one trap could catch those pesky fellows."

Mr. Brooks shook his head. "And after you had such a good trap."

"I know. Daddy said it was clever." I shrugged. "Guess I'll have to be cleverer next year."


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Chloe made a leprechaun trap to catch their two pesky fellows. What kind of trap might you create? Describe it.

Chloe had fun trying out a club at her school. Since she likes making things, the Art Club was perfect for her. What kind of club would you like to go to? Why would you like that club?