Elementary Students Learn How to Trap a Leprechaun

In a creative twist on learning problem solving, students from Tara Holbert’s Hodgenville Elementary School class embarked on an engaging journey to catch leprechauns by designing traps.

What started as a fun St. Patrick's Day project turned into an educational adventure that combined critical thinking with mathematical concepts and understanding simple machines.

“This activity will help them to develop problem-solving skills in order for the trap to work (such as how to make a pulley and how to make it fall down),” Holbert said.

Holbert also noted that the skills gained stretch beyond the classroom.

“They will also learn proper ways to speak to an audience [to present their findings],” she said. “They will also learn to work as a team as they work and communicate with their families to build it and express their ideas. These are lifelong skills.”

Those lifelong skills are exactly why Holbert and other educators across the county are spending time on these projects. These projects are part of a broader effort in the district to create exciting projects that help apply curriculum outside the classroom. The Profile of a Learner initiative exists to help students take information and apply it to everyday life — even if that means trying to catch mythical figures.

So how does one catch a leprechaun? Through teamwork and with a little bit of luck. Holbert explained that students could be successful through creative ideas and communicating that creativity to their classmates. These concepts are the true “catch” of the project.

“They have to brainstorm ideas of how to best build a trap that will work, determine supplies, and work to build it,” she said. “They will communicate with the class how this works and how they built it. Then, they will collaborate with family to build the trap and finally present it to the class and to Kindergarten classes.”