Do you believe in leprechauns?

My grandmother was born and raised in Ireland, but she brought a leprechaun to Boston with her and let him live in her attic, or so she convinced us all!  She had a small bed with blanket up in her attic and when we were sent up to the attic to get something she would yell up the stairs "Watch out for the leprechaun, the leprechaun."  Of course, this was all said with a chuckle and a thick Irish brogue, but we quickly ran about looking behind us repeatedly!  My Nana was an amazing woman who came to America by herself at the age of 16 to find a better life.  She was incredibly strong and had a wonderful sense of humor.  Thanks to my Nana, I will always have a special place in my heart for leprechauns.

I was recently searching for some books about leprechauns on Amazon when I came across a book titled, Silly McGilly.  The book comes with a small stuffed leprechaun.  It was quickly placed in my cart and as you know with Amazon, on my doorstep in 2 days!  There is a web site where you can purchase him as well and the site has some suggestions for activities:

http://www.sillymcgilly.com/activities.html

I introduced my students to Silly McGilly on the last day school in February and let my students pass Silly McGilly around to "meet" him as I read the book.  The book tells students that a leprechaun will visit their classroom at night if Silly McGilly is placed by a window at the end of each day.  

Here are some of the tricks he played in our classroom:

All of the tricks he played were academic and fun.  For instance he turned our word wall words upside down and moved them around.  This trick gave us the opportunity to practice reading sight words and working on alphabetizing.  On another day he mixed up our place value chart so we talked about number order.  A mixed up birthday graph was a good chance to see who knew their birthday and to talk about the order of the months.  We also had the chance to practice reading color words when Silly McGilly mixed up our color word board.  As you can see, Silly McGilly always sits near the "scene of the crime."

Students eagerly looked around the classroom every morning to see what he had done.  The first day he visited was my favorite because although students quickly found him on the chalk tray they did not notice what he had done above the board.  Silly McGilly had turned our numbers upside down and moved them out of order.  These little cuties walked right up to him looked around and said, "he moved, but he didn't do anything?"  "Too bad"  Until one little eagle eye spotted the mix up and said "Wait a minute!"  They all turned around and started jumping up and down.  

It was quick and easy to set up each day and taking a 5 minute break from our regular, heavily structured day, was a great relief to all.  He had to go back to his rainbow to rest after St. Patrick's Day, and he continues to be missed every day.  I still have students walking in looking for him and saying how much they miss him.  

If you don't have a Silly McGilly I highly recommend getting one for next year!!!   Do you do anything special in your classroom for St. Patrick's Day?