Friday at 4:00
March 19, 2021
From the Desk of Dr. Rodriguez
CAUGHT GREEN-HANDED! Well, almost caught. Every March 17, Riviera Day School is visited by Lucky the Leprechaun. This jovial and slightly sneaky little fellow finds his home in some of the nooks in our buildings -- in the bend of a hallway, under a water fountain, or in the hidden doorways found across the campus. Lucky is known for his propensity to steal my treasured gold jewelry, and he inevitably leaves tracks wherever he goes. Tiny green footprints have been spotted on windows, gold coins have been left as payment for some shiny object he decided should be his, and four-leaf clovers have magically sprouted in the grassy areas around school. Rainbows suddenly appear, and though we have yet to find the pots of gold at the end of them, we're sure they're here somewhere.
The adults on campus do everything we can to foster the imaginations of our students. We have them build leprechaun traps to hopefully catch Lucky in the act of being his mischievous self; we point to his possible hiding places around school as we walk by them. "Look! That would be a GREAT place for a leprechaun to hide!" And of course, we read about Irish folktales and how the legend of the leprechaun came to be in the first place.
This year, as luck would have it (no pun intended), our first graders decided that printing a leprechaun trap with our 3D printer would definitely, absolutely, FOR SURE be the way to catch Lucky. Technology would certainly do the job that humans have been unable to do for sooooo many years. Well, with the help of Ms. Travieso, our awesome Technology Curriculum Coordinator and Academic Honors teacher, and the wonderful first grade teachers, our students designed a leprechaun trap using Tinkercad that would surely be the machine that would help us finally prove the existence of leprechauns. With a plan in place to lure Lucky to my office and the trap ready to catch its prey (and knowing that each and every year, one of my gold pieces of jewelry gets stolen and placed elsewhere on campus), Ms. Travieso set the trap in my office. We knew we would have to wait patiently because Lucky would never, in a million YEARS, try to steal something from my office while I was sitting at my desk. We discussed the possibility that he would show up at some point during the day while I was away from my office to pull his usual, yearly prank on me. Little did he know that we were ready for him! Late in the day, when I returned to my office after visiting several classes, I saw that one of my gold earrings was gone! HE DID IT AGAIN! Unbelievable! While the trap didn't officially work because he managed to, once again, escape us, the evidence that Lucky had been there was all the proof we needed to determine that yes, leprechauns DO actually exist. Enjoy the pictures below of our adventures with Lucky, our resident leprechaun, and of our first graders using an amazing piece of modern equipment to catch a legend years in the making.
Have a wonderful weekend, and be sure to "catch" our next edition of Friday at 4:00 on April 9!
Sincerely,
Dr. Rodriguez
Juliet
Isabella D.
Miguel & Isabella V.
Beatriz
Leon
Natalie & Nora
Dramasaurus Rex
The Gold Enticement
SNAP!
Special Events
Class Picture Day is Thursday, March 25. More information will be sent to you early next week.
Making Leprechaun Traps the Old-Fashioned Way
The use of a 3D printer definitely got us a bit farther than usual in our quest to catch Lucky, but sometimes building something with our own two hands is just as effective. First grade students used their designs to create leprechaun traps with materials they found in their homes. Elaborate traps with shiny objects meant to entice Lucky to enter it were found scattered all around campus in the hopes of being "the one" that would work. Here are some of the traps that were made by our very own first graders!
Christian
Mykaela
First graders
How Bulldogs Keep In Touch!
Email: riviera@rivieraschools.com
Website: rivieraschools.com
Location: 6800 Nervia Street, Coral Gables, FL, USA
Phone: (305) 666-1856