Easter

Here is your first EGG-tivity! Following is a basket full of additional cross-curriculum activities. Many are Internet-based, but your students needn't be hooked up to be part of this EGGS-citing learning EGGS-perience!

• "Eggs-treme" Egg Hunt - Students draw and read maps that lead to hidden eggs. (Grades K-8)
• "Eggs-perimenting" Fun - A hands-on "eggs-periment" teaches about density. Plus 10 more egg experiments! (Grades Pre K-8)
• "Eggs-ceptional"Art - Use egg-based paints to make an "eggs-ceptionally" colorful window display. (Grades Pre K-12)
• "Eggs-ploring" Math With Jelly Eggs - Jelly eggs (or jellybeans) help teach estimation, place value, graphing, rounding, computation, and probability. (Grades 3-12)
• Egg-Carton Art "Eggs-hibit" - Recycle egg cartons by turning them into "eggs-quisite" art! (Grades Pre K-8)
• The Classic "Egg-Drop" Activity - You've probably heard all about this classic egg activity -- or seen it in action! The idea behind the "Egg Drop" is to create a "package" that will protect a raw egg when it's dropped from a height of 8 feet (or whatever height you decide).
  • Invite students to bring in from home any materials that they might use in fashioning a protective cushion for their egg. Students can work individually or in pairs to create their egg containers. You'll be fascinated by the interesting contraptions your students come up with!
  • You might place restrictions on the size of a container.
    Once constructed, students are ready to "drop" their eggs from the appointed height.
  • One helpful hint: Spread a plastic tarp over the spot where eggs will land to protect the floor or ground.
• Hands-on science
  • Create a bouncing egg! - Using this science experiment from ERIC's lesson plan archives. Experiment description: A chicken's egg is enclosed by a shell that has a high calcium content. If a raw egg (shell still intact) is placed in a glass of vinegar, a reaction takes place. The acetic acid in the vinegar will dissolve the eggshell and the egg will bounce. The reaction will begin immediately when the egg is placed in the vinegar but will not be complete for two or three days. After two or three days, the egg will survive a drop of four to five inches.
  • (Elementary grades.) Use the Egg Fun exercise from the Southeastern Michigan Math-Science Learning Coalition to learn about some of the properties of an egg. Among the principles learned:

    Eggs may look like they are the same size, but they aren't . We can measure the vertical and horizontal lines of eggs to see just how big they are.
    Eggshells are porous so that air can get in and out of the egg.
    Many objects roll. Eggs roll and wobble in such a way so that they don't travel very far and so they stay near the mother hen

• Language Arts and Art
• Have fun with words that begin with the "ex" letter combination, which (when eggs-agerated) sounds like "eggs" in words such as eggs-cited, eggs-traordinary, and eggs-asperated. Provide students with large, egg-shaped sheets of white paper. Students use cut paper, crayons, and other art materials to create a character for one of their favorite ex words. The character's appearance should in some way "eggs-plain" the word. For example, the egg-shaped character named "eggs-hale" might be wearing a track uniform and be breathing heavily after a long race. The "eggs-pensive" character might be decked out in jewels and driving a Corvette convertible !
• Read aloud to students the Aesop fable The Goose With the Golden Eggs. (The whole fable is only a paragraph long.) Invite students to talk about the lesson this famous fable teaches. While you're at it, you might want to read more Aesop's fables from this site. You might even invite kids to write their own lesson fables.
• Read aloud - Three books about eggs are among the best-known and -loved children's books. Choose one to read aloud, or read all three
  • Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss turns 50 easy words into magic in this time-honored classic in which Sam-I-Am mounts a determined campaign to convince another Seuss character to eat a plate of green eggs and ham. (Be sure to check out teacher Paula White's Dr. Seuss Booktable for classroom follow-up activities for this book, Horton Hatches the Egg, Scrambled Eggs Super, and other Dr. Seuss books!)
  • Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco. Babushka, known for her exquisite hand-painted eggs, finds Rechenka, a wounded goose, and takes her home. When she's ready to try her wings again, Rechenka accidentally breaks all of Babushka's lovingly crafted eggs. But the next morning Babushka awakens to a miraculous surprise.
  • The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth, illustrated by Louise Darling. Nate, a 12-year-old boy living in New Hampshire, takes over the care of an enormous egg laid by one of the family's hens, and the last thing he expects to hatch from it is a triceratops!
• Cultural Studies - Students can learn about the traditional Easter eggs of the Ukraine, called pysansky, on numerous Web sites. (Note: Rechenka's Eggs, one of the books in the previous activity is a perfect introduction to these spectacular eggs.) Students might check out Pysanky Ukrainian Eggs, which includes the history of Ukrainian Easter eggs and details about how the eggs are made.
• Art
  • Students in grades 4 and up will enjoy creating Ukrainian Easter eggs using ERIC's the A Delicate Art - Egg Decorating lesson plan. A raw egg, two dyes, and a white wax crayon are required materials. For younger students: Invite students to use a piece of wax to draw a picture or write a message on a sheet of drawing paper. Then students use watercolor paint to color the paper. Their pictures appear magically!
• Cooking - Use some Student Egg Recipes to create dishes such as scrambled eggs, fried eggs, eggs-in-a-poke, and eggwich.
• Math Problems - (Intermediate grades.) Enjoy mixing eggs and math with the following problems from the Ask Dr. Math Web site.
  • If a chicken and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how long does it take to get a dozen eggs? (See solution.)
  • There are 10 children going on an Easter egg hunt. Every child finds 10 eggs. Suddenly a mean child steals one egg from each child. How many eggs are left? (See solution.)
  • If an egg weighs 20 grams and half an egg, what does an egg and a half weigh? (See solution.)
  • EGGS-panding your math problems.
  • High School Math Problems - This puzzle comes from The Grey Labyrinth site: One December morning after a particularly heavy snowstorm, the power fails. Fortunately, there is still an old wood stove with which you can prepare most of the professors' breakfasts. However one eccentric mathematics professor with a great deal of power and influence at the institute has a peculiar breakfast item which now poses a problem. He likes a single egg boiled for exactly nine minutes. You aren't wearing your watch, and all the clocks in the building are electric. You are able to find two exquisite hourglasses, able to precisely measure in hand-crafted swiss sand seven and four minutes respectively. How quickly using only these two hourglasses can you provide the professor with his egg? (See solution.)

Easter Lesson Plans\Easter Thematic Units\Easter Activities

• The Egg Theme Page - Activities for an Egg theme with links to more...
• The Classroom Easter Egg Hunt - Students work together to find paper or cardboard eggs hidden in the classroom.
• Easter Lesson Plans at LessonPlansPage.com - 16 Easter lesson plans to choose from.
• Easter and Spring Crafts and Activities - from Enchanted Learning
• Easter Crafts - from Kids Domain
• Easter Holiday Fun - from Kids Domain - crafts, puzzles, online games, stories

Easter Printouts

• Easter Coloring Pages -12 nice pictures to print out and color

Easter Clip Art

• Easter Clip Art- from Kids Domain