Leprechaun Trap Challenge (STEM): St. Patrick's Day

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Leprechaun Trap Challenge (STEM) Instructions: Build a trap to catch a leprechaun using everyday materials. Follow the design process below! Objective: Encourage creativity, engineering skills, and problem-solving by designing a functional trap that could catch a mischievous leprechaun. Planning Sheet: Materials List: What will you use? (e.g., paper, string, tape, cardboard, LEGOs, pipe cleaners, cups, paper towel rolls, craft sticks, aluminum foil, etc.) Sketch Your Design: Draw how your trap will work, labeling key parts and mechanisms. Trap Mechanism: How will your trap trigger when the leprechaun enters? Will it use a pulley, lever, or hidden entrance? Will you include bait like gold coins, glitter, or candy? Building Phase: Work on assembling your trap using the selected materials. Testing & Improvements: Try triggering the trap multiple times. Identify any weaknesses and refine the design. Reflection Questions: What was the most challenging part of building the trap? What ...
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Brain Breaks: Some Great Ideas

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Brain breaks are to be used to break up the tedious tasks of learning. Brains get worked in different areas, and sometimes these areas need a break to reset and refresh. Brain breaks are short, movement involved, and may require a different (fun?) way of thinking.

The two brain breaks here not only involve movement, but stimulate in other ways as well. The second brain break below not only is a true brain break, but can also be incorporated to be a regular learning task as well. The best of both worlds!

Brain Break #1: Move Around

The goal here is to get the kids moving around, let off some energy. The class stands up and the teacher is the first to call out a movement. Let's say, "fish." When the teacher calls out fish, all students must start acting like a fish. After a few moments, the teacher calls the name of a student. That student then decides what to movement to call next. The class moves to that, and the teacher calls out another student's name. Repeat until your brain break is over. A variation of this is to let the students move around the room while doing the movements. It does not need to be an animal. It can be literally anything that moves, such as a clock, car, cloud, etc.

Brain Break #2: Which Would you Choose?

This one involves moving, so be prepared. Students all gather in the front of the classrom. The teacher asks a question with two choices. Such as, "Vanilla ice cream or chocolate." The students run/walk to the sides of the room that go with their choice. Tell them left for vanilla, right for chocolate. Have the students count how many are in each group, write the results on the board. Gather the students at the front of the room, and repeat the whole thing again with another choice question. Make up a bunch so you never need to ask the same thing twice. Do this as many times as you wish. Afterward, you could have all students maintain a journal and keep track of the results. They could make bar graphs, etc.


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