9 Leprechaun Trap Ideas For STEM

It’s a STEM tradition to build a St Patrick’s Day leprechaun trap, and the leprechaun trap ideas below are the perfect place to start! Find out how to design and build a leprechaun trap for fun St Patrick’s Day STEM activities.

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Leprechaun Trap STEM Challenge

Looking for a fun and engaging St. Patrick’s Day STEM activity? Challenge young engineers with this Leprechaun Trap STEM Challenge! This hands-on activity encourages kids to design, build, and test creative traps while exploring key STEM concepts. Can they outsmart a tricky leprechaun and catch him before he escapes?

🔎 Explore our St. Patrick’s Day STEM Activities for kids here.

Recommended Grade Level: This activity is ideal for elementary-aged students (Grades 1-5) but can be adapted for older or younger learners with different material choices and added challenges.

Leprechaun Trap Challenge

📖 Legend has it that leprechauns are mischievous little tricksters who love to collect gold—but if you catch one, he might just grant you a wish! The challenge? Design a trap that can catch a leprechaun before he gets away.

Can you create a working trap that will trick a leprechaun into stepping inside and prevent his escape? Test different mechanisms, materials, and designs to build the most effective leprechaun trap. Will your trap be clever enough to catch him?

STEM Concepts Explored:

✔ Simple Machines – Using levers, pulleys, ramps, or trapdoors in your design.✔ Forces & Motion – Understanding how things fall or get triggered.✔ Problem-Solving & Engineering Design – Testing and improving different trap ideas.✔ Math Skills – Measuring materials, calculating angles, and designing stable structures.

💡Grab our Pot of Gold Tower STEM Challenge or Leprechaun Escape Challenge!

How to Make a Leprechaun Trap

Supplies:

• Empty oatmeal container
• Green, black and yellow felt
• Cupcake liners
• Colored craft sticks
• Green embroidery thread
• Red, orange, yellow, green, and blue pipe cleaners
• Chocolate gold coins
• Green glitter
• Sharpie
• Scissors
• Hot glue/hot glue gun

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Leprechaun Trap Tips:

Containers: Set aside various boxes or containers so you can have an assortment available when it’s time to build your leprechaun traps. Suitable cartons to collect are assorted packaging boxes, shoe boxes, oatmeal canisters, cereal boxes, and egg cartons!

• Ladder materials: Collect small items for building ladders, such as twigs, sticks, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, LEGO pieces, straws, or pipe cleaners.
• Extra Items (construction paper, felt, paint, markers, or clay) are needed to make special features such as rainbows.
• Decide on your leprechaun bait. Will you go with gold coins, shiny pennies, skittles, Lucky Charms cereal, or something else?
• Do you plan to include a black pot like the ones pictured at the rainbow’s end? How about confetti?
• What will be the trapping mechanism? A gate that closes, a hole to fall into, a stick that breaks, a box that falls, or another idea?

Free build a leprechaun trap printable! Includes journal pages and fun signs to print, cut, and add to your trap design.

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Leprechaun Trap Building Instructions

💡This is the perfect opportunity to get creative with your Leprechaun Trap and add unique items or completely redesign the whole thing!

STEP 1. Start by covering the outside of your oatmeal (or any) container in green felt or green paper and secure with hot glue. Alternatively, you can paint your container green, rainbow colors, or gold.

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STEP 2. Take the lid off the top, trace it on a piece of green felt, cut out, place the lid back on and hot glue the felt to the top of the lid.

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STEP 3. Draw a larger circle on the green felt, cut out and glue to the bottom of the oatmeal container.

STEP 4. Cut a long skinny piece of black felt, wrap and hot glue around the bottom of the “hat”.

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STEP 5. Cut out a yellow rectangle, and then cut a rectangle out of its center. Glue to the black felt strip.

STEP 6. To make your rainbow ladder, glue enough craft sticks together lengthwise to be a little taller than the hat.

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STEP 7. Carefully cut and glue colored pieces of craft sticks for the ladder steps and glue against the hat.

STEP 8. Glue your pipe cleaners onto the back of the hat in the shape and pattern of a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green and blue.

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STEP 9. Set a handful of gold coins on top of the hat.

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STEP 10: Leprechaun Pulley Trap

Now for the pulley trap system, glue 3 or 4 green craft sticks together lengthwise and one horizontally at the top and glue against the hat.

Poke a hole through the bottom of a green cupcake liner and tie a piece of string through the hole.

Wrap the string lightly around the top craft stick, hanging it over the hat. Pull the string to tighten up the trap. When the leprechaun comes you can let go of the string!

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STEP 11. Cut a yellow craft stick and a square piece of felt. Write “free gold” on the felt and glue to the yellow craft stick. Sprinkle with glitter and glue against the hat.

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More Leprechaun Trap Ideas for Kids

• Make a LEGO Leprechaun Trap from LEGO bricks and a base plate.

• Build a Mini Garden Leprechaun Trap to catch a leprechaun.

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More Fun St. Patrick’s Day Activities For Kids

• Leprechaun Toothpaste
• St Patrick’s Day Science Experiments
• St Patrick’s Day Activities For Preschoolers
• Slime You Can Make For St Patrick’s Day
• Free St Patrick’s Day Printables
• St Patrick’s Day LEGO Challenges
• St Patrick’s Day Art Projects

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Printable St. Patrick’s Day STEM Pack

Over 100 pages of easy-to-use STEM activities will make your prep and planning time a cinch! Cheap supplies, easy to set up and clean up, and full of hands-on fun!

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