Why should leprechauns get all the gold? π If you caught our St. Patrick’s Day Gold Dig post yesterday, you already know that we have another fabulous gold activity, to share with you today…an ABC Gold Hunt!
While our little nugget was enjoying her quiet time one afternoon, I emptied all of the gold coins out of her Minnie Mouse purse (where she was keeping them safe from dragons). I placed a letter of the alphabet on each coin, and then stealthily hid them throughout our living room. To make the ABC Gold Hunt even more fun, I turned our oldΒ Alphabet Monster (i.e. baby wipes container) into a leprechaun, so that our daughter would have a place to store all of the lettered coins, once she found them!
When she came downstairs, I told her we had a visitor. She quickly glanced around for her Grandma D (her favorite visitor, obviously), but was still pleased when she discovered the little leprechaun sitting on the dining room table. She decided to name him Lucky, after a little green leprechaun in one of her favorite St. Patrick’s Day books. She picked Lucky up off the table and gave him a shake, determining that he was empty. “What do you think he wants?” I asked. She thought about it for several minutes and then replied, “Leprechauns love gold!”
I informed our little nugget that while she was up in her room, Lucky had raced around our living room, hiding a bunch of gold coins. The only problem was now he forgot where he hid them all, and he needed her help finding them. She raced off and the ABC Gold Hunt began!
ABC Gold Hunt
Supplies:
- Plastic Gold Coins (I ordered this pack from Amazon)
- Round Stickers (I used these 1-1/4″ Fluorescent Labels)
- Marker
If you want to make a leprechaun to collect (and store) all of the gold coins, you will also need:
- Empty Baby Wipes Container
- Two Googly Eyes (I love the ones in this sticker multi-pack)
- Construction Paper (Green, Black, Yellow, and Orange)
- Scissors
- Tape/Glue
Instructions:
- Using the marker, write one letter of the alphabet on each round sticker. Feel free to use uppercase, lowercase, or a mixture of the two. Place one round sticker on each gold coin, pressing firmly.
- Hide the lettered gold coins throughout your house.
- Start the ABC Gold Hunt!
If you would like to make the leprechaun container…
- Adhere the two googly eye stickers to the underside of the little top flap of the wipes container (the part that you used to open to pull the wipes through).
- Cut a top hat out of the green construction paper. Tape or glue a little black belt (with a yellow buckle) to the top hat. Cut a handful of small strips from the orange paper (for the leprechaun’s hair) and tape or glue them in place, on the back of the top hat.
- Tape (or glue) the hat to the top of the flap on the wipes box, above the googly eyes.
Our little nugget was delighted to find that each gold coin was marked with a letter. Each and every time she found a coin, she would loudly exclaim the letter that she had discovered…and then she would shout out a school friend, whose name started with that same letter. π It was educational and fun at the same time!
As she raced around collecting coins, she would periodically return to feed the gold to the hungry leprechaun. When she was fairly certain that she had collected all of the letters, we emptied the leprechaun and placed the coins in alphabetical order, to see if she had truly found them all. We noticed that there were still a few missing, and set back out on our search…until all of the letters had been found.
This cute St. Patrick’s Day activity was such a hit, that the next time our daughter went upstairs for quiet time, she asked Lucky if he could please hide all of the gold coins again! π I’d call that a win!
You don’t need gold coins and a leprechaun to do this letter activity with your little ones, we’ve also conducted this ABC Hunt, using colorful construction paper.
HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!
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