Saturday, March 17, 2012

St. Patrick's Day treasure hunt

Our treasure box.  You can see we kept it very simple and easy.



This year I decided to do something fun for the kids on St. Patrick's Day.  I must admit I have no idea why we have this holiday, but let it be fun I say!  Here's the supplies needed:  

Treasure box (or shoe box, or anything)
Treats, little treasures
Leprechaun footprints (free printable below!)
 "Legend of the   Leprechauns"
   Green food coloring

The night before Saint Patrick's Day, the kids  decorated our Treasure box with stickers, and paper, whatever we had around.  Then I read the "Legend of the Leprechauns"  to them.  Here's the Legend:  (The original is from Family fun, I made a few changes....http://familyfun.go.com/st-patricks-day/st-patricks-day-crafts/magic-treasure-box-710371/)

 
LEGEND OF THE LEPRECHAUNS
Full of magic and trickery,  Leprechauns remain in their hidden world until the night before St. Patrick's Day. On that one night of the year they appear throughout the world to dance and sing and frolic; and get into mischief!

Disguising themselves as leaves and grass, and sounding like the wind and the crickets, they come and go unnoticed.   They love to be sneaky.

However, it is said that if a decorated treasure box is left empty under the moon, the leprechauns must fill the box with gold or jewels or gifts. But then they will hide the filled box in the most unlikely of places.


If the box is found on St. Patrick's Day, the treasure remains in our world. If not, the leprechauns may retrieve what is rightfully theirs. And though the leprechauns are very clever, it is not impossible to find the treasure because, unknowingly, leprechauns often leave some kind of trail  behind them. 

In the morning, the girls woke up to Leprechaun footprints all over the house.  They had come in and flipped over some couch cushions, jumped up on the kitchen chandelier, hijacked the kids little chalkboard and drew a rainbow and pot o' gold, they even used the bathroom.  There were two little footprints on the toilet and the water was green.  The footprints led to the fridge where they had turned our milk green.  And of course some of the footprints led to the hidden treasure box which had some candy necklaces and gold wrapped candy (Rolo's are perfect!)  The girls thought this was so fun!  So did I :)




For the footprints, I just traced a little doll shoe and cut out about 75 of them. (Yay for the good scissors I got as a neighbor gift for Christmas!  I could cut about 5 sheets at a time:)  In the case that you do not have little doll shoes for tracing, or you'd just rather not trace a doll shoe 15 times, I put together this little printable of the Leprechaun footprints!
  
 Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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