I’m about to admit something that not many elementary teachers can’t say…I have NEVER had a leprechaun visit my classroom before! You may call me a leprechaun bah humbug but I’ve always been nervous as to how my students would react, would they be able to handle it or get too out of control?! Well, this year I threw caution to the wind and embraced it head on! A sneaky leprechaun came to visit and boy oh boy did we have some fun!
I couldn’t wait to share my leprechaun ideas with my students but I decided to go a little different route than I’ve seen floating around on Pinterest. I wanted to tie the leprechaun visit into a reading strategy that we’ve been working on; cause and effect! To set the scene I let Louie come in and WRECK the room. I’m talking chairs everywhere (even on top of the mailboxes), footprints on the desks, papers turned green, and shamrocks scattered everywhere! My normal neat freak self was none too pleased but I knew it would be so worth it! Louie the Leprechaun even left a note on the back table for us to read and try and figure out all of his crazy antics!
My co-teacher and I purposely found an excuse to be out of the room before the bell rang so we could walk in with our students lined up outside of the classroom. The instant they saw the mess, I knew that this was going to be well worth the effort! The screams that ensued were amazing and the kids ran around the classroom in such a state of excitement!
When we were settled down and had a chance to get over the initial shock of the mess that we walked into, I called everyone to the back table to read the note that Louie left us. He told us that he had made a mess and it was up to us to figure out all of the damage he had caused in the classroom!
We spent the next few minutes hunting around the room noticing all of the things that Louie had done. Besides the classroom objects that had been moved, he emptied our table bins and only left us with St. Patrick’s Day pencils, green crayons and markers, flipped our clip chart upside down, and turned all of our papers for the day green!
Once we found all of Louie’s silly tricks, we gathered to the carpet to find a cause and effect sort that Louie had left for us. We went through all of the cards and matched the causes to the effects of Louie’s visit. The kids were so engaged and they found it easier to match the cause and effect relationships because they were living it in that moment!
After sorting all of our cards, I sent the kids back to their seats to record a few examples of the causes and effects from Louie’s visit on green paper of course! Some used the examples from our sort while others took the challenge and recorded their own observations! They did so well!
To finish off our exciting morning, the students were able to hunt around the room for some gold coins that Louie had left (Louie was playing around in our room SO he dropped gold coins on the floor). Once the students found their gold coins they realized that Lucky Louie had left a surprise on the back! The gold coins were really FREE HOMEWORK PASSES!!! Best. Day. Ever!
We ended our day on a relaxing note with First Grade Blue Skies’ amazing directed drawings! They all came out just too precious. Here’s one of the finished products!
I love that my students had a blast with Lucky Louie the leprechaun and that we were able to tie in some of our reading strategies to our fun day! If you’re looking for something new and educational to use with your leprechaun visit next year, check out my packet of activities on TpT here.
I hope you all had a magical day in your classroom full of good luck! I’ll leave you with these little shamrocks who made me smile all day, have a great night!
8 Comments
Wow, it looks like you had so much fun with your students! I love how Olaf joined in, too!
Thank you so much for stopping by! Yes, we had a blast with Louie the Leprechaun and of course Olaf had to join in on the fun! The kids thought Olaf would make friends with the leprechaun, too sweet!
Jayme – this is awesome! It looks like your kiddos had an incredible day – and I'm sure they will never forget what they have learned about cause and effect. Great thinking! I hope you had some help cleaning up! š
Nicole
Why Pencils Have Erasers
Thank you so much Nicole! You are too sweet! Unfortunately, the leprechaun didn't leave me with any helpers to clean up the mess but my sweet kids were very eager to get the classroom back to its normal state. They're too funny when they're taken out of their usual routine! Hope you and your kiddos had a fun day too!
I loved reading about your leprechaun adventures! It sounded like they have so much fun. I have always been reluctant like you to do that, perhaps next year I should give it a try! š Thanks for sharing!
I loved reading about your leprechaun adventures! It sounded like they have so much fun. I have always been reluctant like you to do that, perhaps next year I should give it a try! š Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much Diana! I'm glad I gave it a try this year because as chaotic as it was, the kids had a great day! I'm sure we'll be talking about this in class for a long time. The learning really stuck with them! Have a great day!
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