Making Learning Fun with Easter Eggs- and FREEBIES!


Guess what?! I'm BACK with more adorable Easter egg ideas for your week!  Even if you don't get to these activities this week, you could do them next week as well.  That is, if you aren't on Spring Break like me!  I have so many ideas, I can't possibly do them all, but these are a few of the activities that we're doing this week.  If you want some more ideas, I have another post here all about Easter eggs.  

In this post, I showed you how I was planning on adapting a game called "Hidden Partners" with Easter eggs.  Well, I was working on some other stuff last night, when it hit me that I could use those adorable erasers I purchased instead. 

Voila!  The kids loved it!


I love the way these adorable eggs look in the basket with the Number Story Mats.  I'm not sure which one I love more, the basket or the eggs.  :-)  I know, I'm such a nerd, but OMG!  You can find out more about the Number Story Mats here.  I purchased some erasers at Target that I filled these with.   


I also adapted another one of my favorite games for Easter.  This one is called "Spill and Add 10" or "Toss the Chips", depending on which math program you use.  :-)  Usually, I use 2-color counters for this game, but I used a few of the lima beans I had to make 2-sided "jellybeans" to use.  The kids loved them.  You don't have to use 10 counters- you can use whichever number you want!

First, you place all 10 counters in the egg and shake it up.  Then you spill the counters on the table.  

Sort the counters into groups based on which side is up when they landed on the table.  For some kids, this is enough for them to be able to record. 

But for some students, I give them a ten frame to place their counters on.  This helps them keep track of how many counters they have, and it also helps them see how to make 10.   

Then, they can record the ten frame and the equation on a recording sheet.  Guess what?  This is a freebie!

You can snag this freebie here!

I couldn't pass up these adorable chick Easter eggs too.  We are using this with a freebie recording sheet from Mr. Smedley.

This game is very simple.  Fill the egg with jellybeans, or in my case, "jellybeans" because I don't like sticky messes!  The students sort the jellybeans by color, and then record on the recording sheet.  I love how it makes them color in the jellybean colors on the recording sheet.

For our phonics center for the week, we practiced building word family words.  We have already covered ap, am, and at, so we used Easter eggs to build the words.  (Another one of those baskets.  I LOVE them!) 

When the kids put the parts together, they built a word.  These Easter eggs are so pretty, but man, they were super hard to get a good picture of!   

Tip:  I used a Professional Sharpie to write on these eggs.  I've written on Easter eggs in the past, just to have the writing be smudged off.  I got my Professional Sharpie at Home Depot.  I'll keep you posted on how well it works.  So far, so good!

They wrote their words on an Easter basket recording sheet.  You can download this as a freebie.  


For our word work center, the kids practiced making word wall words and writing those words in a sentence. 

Inside each egg were the letters written on a "jellybean".  Instead of purchasing sticky jellybeans, I bought some lima beans and spray painted them.  Then I wrote a letter on each "jellybean" and placed them in the egg.  You could use letter tiles or magnetic letters or even letters typed up on a piece of paper.

The kids put the "jellybeans" in order to make the word.  Then they wrote it in a sentence. 

If you are looking for a few more great ideas, I have another post with a few more Easter/Easter egg ideas here that you can check out.  There are a few FREEBIES there as well!

Have a great week!







Easter Egg FUN!

This week is our last week before Spring Break, and we're going to have so much fun!  I wanted to share a few of the things we'll be doing this week in hopes that some of you can have some fun with your kiddos as well.  I have included a few freebies too!

Lots of the activities we're doing involve Easter Eggs!  I stocked up on fun Easter eggs at the Dollar Tree this week, much to the dismay of my wallet!  But they were so cute, and I can use them again, so I don't feel THAT bad about it. 
Eggs, eggs, and more eggs.

But they are so CUTE! 

It's a good thing I have this amazing bag to hold them all in! 


I have a TON of Easter egg games planned for math.  We are working on addition and subtraction, so our math games are all centered around decomposing and composing numbers, adding, subtracting, etc...  We also have a little bit of graphing thrown in there as well!  I'm sharing a few of them with you now, and I'll be back at the end of the week to share the rest.

You can find this graphing freebie in my TPT store.  My kids LOVE graphing, especially when it involves candy!  There are 3 different versions of the graph, including a blank one, just in case your jellybean colors don't match up with what I have!  There is also a sheet full of questions that your students can answer about their data.  It's perfect for firsties!  My students totally rocked it last year when we used it.

You can find this awesome freebie here!


I also found these adorable erasers from Target that I just couldn't wait to use!  

I created these Spring Number Story Mats so that my students can practice addition and subtraction stories and use the erasers I bought.  There is also a mat that uses jellybeans as well.  

I also have some paper manipulatives that can be printed on colored cardstock or construction paper for those of you who don't have a Target near you. (Sad times)  Or maybe you're just not crazy like me and think you need to go out and buy 6 packs of erasers.  

It also comes with several spinners so that you can choose the best way to use them with your students.  I know my students will love these adorable bunny spinners.

I put the erasers in these adorable eggs from the Dollar Tree.  The bunny erasers are in the bunny, the chicks are in the chick, etc...  Then they can grab the correct set of manipulatives to go with their story mat.


The best part about these is that they are spring, not Easter themed, so they can be used all season!  You can find them in my TPT store as well. 


I am also adapting one of my favorite games for Easter.  It's called "Hidden Partners."  Usually this game is played with cubes and the students hide the hidden partner behind their back, but I thought it would be fun to play with Easter eggs and jellybeans.  I also decided that I didn't want to buy a ton of jellybeans for them to get sticky, so I spray painted some lima beans instead to be my "jellybeans" because I'm weird like that.

There are 10 "jellybeans" in each egg.  The student covers up some of the jellybeans, and their partner has to figure out how many jellybeans are underneath the egg (or behind their back) by using the number of jellybeans that are left. 

If the student gets the answer right, their partner lifts up the egg to show them the answer!  I love that this game is easy to prep and practices some excellent number skills.  You can use any number besides 10 as well, so it's easily adaptable.  





We've been working with the number 10, so we're going to play a fun game with Easter eggs and a ten frame made out of an egg carton.  I've been wanting to do this for awhile, so I've been saving up my egg cartons.  I made a little recording sheet for this game.  The students will roll a 6-dot dice and put the eggs in the egg carton.  Then they will figure out how many more eggs they need to make 10 and add those eggs in a different color.  On the recording sheet, they will color in the eggs and write an equation.

If you want to play this fun game with your students, you can get this recording sheet as a freebie.  Just click on the image to get it! Sorry, egg cartons and eggs are not included.




We've also been working on our word families a lot the past few weeks.  We're working on the -an word family this week.  We also review other word families that we've already done so that we don't forget those sounds!  It's so important to continue to practice these sounds and allow the students to continue to work with them.  Since we love to get our kids up and moving, I created a fun Write Around the Room game to help practice the sounds we've been working on.  The kids will find the eggs "hidden" (in plain sight!) around the room.  Then they will say the word and figure out which sound they hear.  They will write the word on the recording sheet in the correct basket.  

You can find the Short- a word family version here in my TPT store.  I also created a version that practices L-blends and S-blends for my first grade friends.  They are also available in my TPT store.