My Adventures in Life as a Leprechaun

For all the grown-ups of the world is mostly about and corned beef, but for the little kids around Pleasanton, this day means one thing: Leprechauns, of course! Those naughty little magical fairies that wreak all sorts of havoc in homes and classrooms around town.

Did you wake up today to green toilet water? Did you pour some milk on your cereal and suddenly find it looking like a shamrock?

I'm lucky enough that my job here at Patch gives me time off to volunteer, so I'm able to play art teacher once a month in my son's second/third grade class at

I was flat out of ideas for what to do this week, but my friend Irina, who weirdly seems to be a character in every blog I write lately, came to the rescue with large collection of toilet paper rolls. (Why Irina happened to have a large collection of toilet paper rolls is subject for a later blog.)

That, for no logical reason whatsoever, led me to decide to create leprechaun traps. And no, we were not drinking. At least not on this particular day together. 

To make this project the least amount of work possible for myself, I decided to make this a creative challenge for the kids. I would give each kid team a shoebox with exactly the same items inside and leave it up to them to decide what they would make.

Their supplies, limited to whatever I had at home (or was cheap at ), included: 10 straws, black hair bands, green tissue paper, the aforementioned toilet paper rolls and a piece of thick white string. Oh, and the MAGIC BEANS.

We cannot forget the magic beans (bait!). After the kids got started on their projects, I got myself into character and tried to keep a straight face as I presented each team with a plate of pastel "beans," telling them if they dared to eat any themselves, they would risk being turned into leprechauns.

I apparently was not convincing enough because I got some pretty skeptical looks, and several happily gobbled some of them up, asking for seconds.

But anyhow, the lesson was a huge hit! I was blown away by where their little minds went, most notably the team that turned one of the little black rubber bands into something like a wild game snare with a jelly bean inside.

Woe to whatever little green man who dared to venture onto their home turf!

A couple of days later one of the team's traps mysteriously went missing. I swear it was not me!! I got a rather interesting email from our poor teacher, explaining that the missing trap caused QUITE a diversion from the day's lesson. OOPS. (Sorry Mrs. Kinney! Love ya!)

So my final job in this week-long distraction of the classroom involved sneaking back into the classroom to disperse of various pretend gold coins and monies, kindly supplied by the ever-present Irina. (Seriously, I am not making Irina up. She really exists. And she's actually Russian, too, which is extra neat.)

Of course I was running late. As usual. But I managed to sneak into the classroom in the nick of time to disperse the various bullion. 

It was difficult. Those rotten kiddies hid some of their traps, apparently thinking they would fool this smart leprechaun, but alas he (me) was too crafty, and I accomplished my mission.

Yeah, I almost got locked onto the school campus doing it. (Tip from an actual teacher: Do not attempt to climb the fence. It's kinda' sharp on top.) 

But I'm so glad that today will be a magical day.