Tom and Lauren Take Europe: St. Patrick's Day

One of my favorite holidays is St. Patrick's Day! This year at ABC we decided to do it big! We began early in the week planting our seed about the leprechauns and how sneaky they are. The kids were so excited, so we decided to build leprechaun traps to try and catch them. We used 'magical' glitter and sprinkled it in their traps. We told them that leprechauns like the glitter because they think it looks like gold. The anticipation was so high, the kids were so excited to see if the leprechauns were going to come to our school. Michaella (friend/coworker) and I stayed late the night before and completely trashed the school! We flipped the chairs upside down, spilled glitter everywhere, switched the chalkboards, dyed their water green, and messed up all the toys! To finish it off we decided to place green foot prints all over the room, and set off some of the traps. I made a trap and we put a little figure inside with his hand sticking out to make it look like I caught a leprechaun, inside the trap was a note that said "HAha Lauren, you can't catch me!" We also set off one of our students traps. This sweet little child took so long to build her trap and even left a welcome mat! We decided to write this sweetie a note from the leprechauns. It said, "I really like your trap Nela, but I'm too sneaky you can't catch me!" We finished up a few things and placed some foot prints on the door and in the bathroom, we were so excited to see their faces! The next morning was amazing, the kids could not believe what had happened. They came up with an idea of what had happened and they followed the foot prints all over the room and finally decided that the leprechauns came in the back window that was left open. They were so confused how the little leprechauns could make such a big mess and pick up such heavy objects! I asked one student why all of Michaella's stuff was all over my chalk board and she responded that the leprechauns switched our boards and that we can't fix it because we don't have the magic to lift up the boards and switch them back! So to this day they think that our boards were switched rather than just the pictures on the board, bless their sweet little hearts:) Overall, it was by far the best St. Patrick's Day and I got so much joy from seeing them so excited! I also have never seen so many little pairs of green skinny jeans...our parents do such an amazing job of getting in the spirit!

**Please notice the adorable "Ahoj mat" at the entrance. Ahoj is something you say to your friends when you greet them or leaving, similar to hello and goodbye. The funny thing though is that in Czech you don't use Ahoj to someone you do not know so it was cute that she used it an assumed they were "friends" even though she never met the leprechauns!