St. Patrick's Day

Believe it or not, the Leprechaun came to Room 117 last week!  He was the one who wrote the morning message.  He was the trickster who mixed up the numbers on the hundred chart. And he was the one who inspired us to be Trap Engineers!

Well, actually, it was our friendly and creative neighbor, Mrs. Murphy, who came up with this exciting STEM activity.  Students had to work with a partner to come up with a plan, sketch a design, and use teamwork, creativity, and engineering skills to catch the little Irish man.

We talked about what our traps would need:

*some type of entrance

*a clever way to lure him in

*a way to trap him

Our Gordon College intern, Miss Zoe, helped us get our trap plans started!

The children hoped he would visit while they were away at music.  They crept down the hall back to the room in hopes of not scaring the leprechaun away.  But, alas, he was too quick.  As children inspected their traps, they saw closed boxes, nibbled paper apples, and fallen glue sticks that once dangled from the tables.  Their eyes widened with surprise that the little leprechaun had left golden nuggets, green footprints, dark green beaded necklaces, and glitter everywhere!

After cleaning up the mess Leppy had left us, the children settled down and wrote about why they felt their traps were still a success despite the mischievous leprechaun's grand escape.

In the afternoon, we completed a science experiment that I found here.  We tried making Rainbow Rain.  We gathered the materials, took turns adding the fluffy shaving cream and colorful food coloring.  We learned that using the pipette did not work very well so we decided to pour the water from a cup, which created more of a whirlwind of colorful water than drops of colorful rain.  We did learn, however, that when clouds get heavy with water, we get precipitation.

There was some skepticism of who the leprechaun really was, but I neither confirmed nor denied the accusations that I was behind the mischief.  I think we can all agree though that fun was had by all, including me.  I enjoyed seeing the students' creativity and teamwork!