Persuade a Leprechaun!

Teaching first graders about holidays is always hilarious.

Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, a leprechaun - Whatever it is they swear they have seen it, held it, talked to it...

If I have to hear that one more of my students saw a leprechaun and held it in their hands before he tricked them and got away - I will go crazy!

To get them to stop talkin' and start workin' we wrote some letters to these tricky little leprechauns!

We have been working on opinion writing so I wanted to take it one step further and I introduced the word persuade. We talked a bit about what it meant and then I told the students to imagine that they had just caught a real-life leprechaun. Their goal was to persuade the leprechaun to give them their pot of gold.

The kids had a ball with this!

 First, we completed our graphic organizers and planned out 3 good reasons for the leprechaun to give up his pot o' gold!

 

 "If you give me your gold I will let you go. If you give me your gold I will never ask you to give me your gold ever again. I will give you a green apple."

Hmm.. I don't know about that green apple...

"Leprechaun wouldn't have to carry around heavy gold because I would have it. I could buy games and toys like XBOX! I could pay for my family and me to go on a trip to Lego Land!"

I love that his first reason is for the benefit of the leprechaun - genius!

Here were some of the letters:

 "Dear leprechaun, I think you should give me your gold because I will help you make your shoes. You should give me your gold because I am nice to people. You should give me your gold because I help people and my favorite color is green."

Can you tell we have been working on contractions? Love the application! 

 "Dear leprechaun, You should give me your gold because I will dance with you. I will hug you. Also, I will be your best friend. I have the best teacher in the whole entire world. Thank you."

Umm...who wouldn't give her all their gold!?! I may be a bit biased, but c'mon! A good dance and a hug?! SOLD!

 

"Dear leprechaun, I think you should give me your gold because there are a lot of homeless people in Nevada. I am really really really nice. I am a good kid. I have the best teacher in the whole world. I live in the desert and I am not tricking you."

This might be a good time to reassure you that I do NOT tell them to write about me... my girls are just sweeties who simply love their teachers. This little lady was so genuine when she read me her letter. She said she would use  a-l-m-o-s-t  all of the gold to help the homeless here in Vegas and that she would use the rest to do something fun with her family. Love!

These pages came from my Writing through the Seasons {Spring} packet and can I just say how thrilled I am that it is already Spring?!? The weather here in Vegas is reaching the 80s and I don't have to wear the same 6 sweaters on rotation anymore :)

My mini countdown til Spring Break:

8 more school days.

Adios!