When I was younger, my mom hid Easter eggs all throughout the house. My young self felt a surge of excitement upon seeing each of those bright plastic eggs! Chances are, many of your students feel the same egg hunting excitement as my mid-80s self. Tap into this enthusiasm and use it to your advantage in your classroom with these eggcellent ideas.
Literacy Ideas
Using plastic Easter eggs in your literacy block is easy as pie!
Vocabulary Practice
Take a break from regular kill and drill vocabulary worksheets with plastic eggs! There are a couple of variations to this idea:
- Place your vocab words in the eggs, and hide the eggs around the classroom (or outside).Students hunt for the eggs, open them and write down the definition of the word on a recording sheet.
- Place vocabulary definitions in half of the eggs, vocabulary words in the other half. When you say go, students each find one egg. Then, they need to quietly and quickly find the student with the matching word or definition. This can be played several times!
Science of Reading
Work on phonics and phonemic awareness with this engaging eggs activity. Easy prep instructions:
- Cut apart the strips and place in eggs.
- Hide around the classroom. If you want it to be an easy scoot type game, place one egg on each student's desk.
- Students open the eggs, and write the answer on their recording sheet.
- Make sure students put the slip back in the egg for another student to find!
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Extra tip: write letters on the outside of the eggs to match the strips. This helps students quickly know if they have already opened or need that egg. Read more about the Science of Reading egg hunt here.
Word Parts
Plastic Easter eggs can be a very simple way to practice different word parts. Our teaching community had tons of ideas for this type of egg exercise:
- Word Families: write a letter or consonant blend on the first half of the egg, and the word family on the second half. Students twist the egg to make all of the words.
- Compound Words: This idea came straight from our Lucky 2nd Grade Teachers facebook group. Write the first part of the compound word on the top of the egg, and the second part on the bottom. Hide the tops of all the eggs around the room or on the playground/outdoor area. Give each student the bottom part of an egg with the second half of a compound word written on it. Then, have students find the word that completes their compound word. Have students share their compound words with the class. Fun activity and gets students up and moving.
- Prefixes & Suffixes: This could be done in the same way as either the word family eggs OR the compound word eggs.
Story Writing
Hide sight words, vocabulary words or any words of your choice in a pile of plastic eggs (enough for 2-3 eggs for each student). Hide these around the classroom. Students will hunt for the eggs, and when they have 2-3, they return to their seats and use the words hidden in the eggs in a short story. Extend this idea with am author share!
Parts of Speech Sort
There are tons of easy and low prep grammar activities that will be an eggcellent addition to your school day! Write out a collection of nouns, verbs and adjectives on slips of paper. Place the slips in your eggs, and put the eggs in a basket. Students will use this as a center, opening and sorting the eggs by parts of speech. Take it a step further and have students write down their words on a recording sheet.
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This could also be done with synonyms & antonyms or prefixes & suffixes.
Math Ideas
Of course we couldn't leave out math ideas for you to tuck into your teaching basket.
Math Egg Hunt
Similar to the Science of Reading egg hunt activity, this math egg hunt reviews important skills while getting students up and out of their seats.
Expanded Form
Another eggciting math idea is to have students match expanded and standard forms of numbers. Give students half of an egg with either the standard or expanded form of a number written on it. Next, have them find the matching egg half that is hidden. To extend the fun, have them rehide either half of their egg for another student to find.
Fractions
Write a numerator or denominator on each half of an egg. Then, hide the egg halves around the classroom. Students find two halves of an egg. When they put their egg together, they will draw the fraction they made on a whiteboard or recording sheet.
Variation: Hide little trinkets in eggs like mini erasers, little pom poms or cereal pieces. Then, after finding an egg, students write the fraction represented. See the example below.
Coin Scoot
Add random amounts of coins into sharpie labeled plastic Easter eggs and hide the eggs around the room. Students will find the eggs, count the coins, and write that amount on a recording sheet. To make review or correcting easier, have them write the letter or number that was on the outside of each egg next to their answers.
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Social Studies & Science Ideas
Continue the egg theme right into your Social Studies or science lessons.
STEM Plastic Easter Egg Drop
Have students build a vessel they believe will hold their egg tight when dropped from a height. Use easily found materials in the classroom: coffee filters, paper plates, tinfoil, pipe cleaners, etc.
After students construct their egg cradles, have them drop them from up high. If their egg stays secure in their cradle, they have succeeded in this STEM mission.
American Symbols Hunt
If you have taught an American symbols unit, use plastic eggs for review. Print off pictures of national symbols such as:
- an eagle
- the flag
- the White House
- the Washington Monument, etc…
Hide the eggs around the room and have students write down which symbol they find in each egg.
Compass Rose Egg Hunt
This activity is a scavenger hunt with a social studies twist, and is best done in a small group. Write directions in each egg. For example, “Walk west three steps.” Each direction should lead to the next egg.
At the end of the hunt, they can receive a prize of your choosing. What a fun way to work on compass rose skills!
Just for Fun Ideas
Let's wrap up this list with a few more traditional egg ideas.
Candy
Stuff candy inside plastic Easter eggs and hide them around the classroom or school yard for students to find. Make sure to tell them how many eggs they are allowed to find before stopping. (This ensures all get an equal amount.)
What a fun activity before going home for break!
Scavenger Hunt
Like the compass rose activity above, have students find clues in each egg. If able, hide the eggs all around your campus to stretch out the activity and up the excitement. In the end, the last egg could hold a little note about a class wide reward. This could be extra recess, craft time, movie, etc.
Surprise Reward
Use plastic eggs for a behavior management tool! At the beginning of March or April, fill a basket with enough plastic eggs for each student to receive 1-3 eggs throughout the month. There are a few ways to manage this, but here is my favorite. Have a daily “mystery” student. Each morning, secretly select a student. Remind your class the mystery student could be anyone in the room! When behaviors get wild, say something like, “Oh no, we are getting a bit wild. I hope the mystery student can keep it together.”
At the end of the day, if the mystery student had a good day, announce the student's identity to the class. They will then come up and select an egg from the basket. Prizes could be candy, gum, desk pet erasers, or even notes about bigger prizes like lunch in the classroom, etc…
Staff Morale Boost
This idea is straight from the facebook group, as well. Thank you for the idea, Julie H.! For a staff morale boost, her school put an egg in each teacher's mailbox. Some of the eggs had candy, some had golden tickets. The golden tickets were good for gift cards to local coffee shops, stores and restaurants. What a fun and simple idea!
Watch These Ideas in Action
Join Katie, from Team Lucky Little Learners, as she shares our top 13 Easter Egg activities your students will LOVE.
More Ideas?
Do you have another idea on how to use plastic Easter eggs in the classroom? Comment below!
Happy teaching!
nice ideas! Thanks for sharing.