12 Activities with Plastic Eggs

Write journal prompts on small slips of paper, and put each one in an egg.  Have each student pick an egg and write about whatever prompt he or she gets.  Have students return their prompts and use them again on another day. Create your own, or print off some of these 200 prompts terrific writing prompts.

 

 

Write a different math problem on small slips of paper, and put one in each egg. Make sure each answer is different. Have each student pick an egg, solve his or her problem, and write it on a personal whiteboard or on a piece of paper. Then, the students must form a line from the smallest answer to the largest. This would be particularly challenging using fractions. The game can be played again simply by having the students return their math problems to their eggs and redistributing the eggs.

 

 

Write synonyms on different slips of paper. The synonyms can be in pairs, or you could use several synonyms (for example, big, huge, gigantic, vast, enormous etc.). Each student takes an egg and draws a picture to represent his or her synonym. Then, students walk around the room holding their pictures. The challenge is for the students to use their pictures to find their matching synonyms. No talking allowed. Here is a good synonym resource. This could also be done with antonyms.

 

 

Print task cards on regular printer paper so that you can fold them up. Put one in each egg and hide like a regular hunt. Students first hunt for eggs and then write or discuss answers for the cards inside the eggs that they found. This would be great in small groups for discussion. Hide the eggs again for a new game!

 

 

Have each student write down one interesting fact about himself or herself that is not widely known and put it in an egg. Redistribute the eggs and either have each student try to find the person whose fact he or she has, or have students take turns reading the facts out loud and guessing who the person that wrote it is. This last one is probably better in a smaller group.

 

 

In small groups or pairs, experiment rolling eggs down an inclined plane. What happens if you put something (or several things) inside the egg? Hypothesize about what might happen. Test the hypothesis. Draw conclusions. Compare results between groups.

 

 

Have each student bring an egg home and fill it with exactly ten of the same small objects (beans, paperclips, pennies etc.). The objects must make a noise when the egg is shaken. Group the students into pairs and have each one guess what is in his or her partner’s egg by shaking it and by asking yes or no questions. When everyone is done, discuss what kinds of questions worked the best. Give everyone a different partner and try the game again. This would make a fun introduction to inference.

 

 

Put a different number of coins in each egg. Use a permanent marker to number the eggs. Give each student an egg and an answer sheet. Students open their eggs, count the change, and write the answer on their answer sheets (correlating the number on the egg with the number on the answer sheet). When they are done, they carefully put the coins back in the egg and find another student who is also done to trade eggs with. Students continue counting and trading until they have done all of the eggs. Here are more math activities.

 

 

In small groups, have students decorate the eggs to make them into characters in a story (or part of a story) you are reading. Glue a craft stick to the back of each one Then, have students use the eggs like puppets to act out the story. Older students love this. Here are some other ways to respond to literature.

 

 

Write a different math problem on the outside of twelve eggs with a permanent marker. Write the answer to each problem in the cup parts of an egg carton. Students match each egg to its answer.

 

 

Fill six different colored eggs with different amounts of pennies or other objects so they will all weigh different amounts. The student lines each egg up from lightest to heaviest, first by picking up each egg and guessing and then using a scale to check his or her guesses. Use a recording sheet with six empty eggs to record guesses.

 

 

For this project, each student uses twelve eggs to represent different parts of a book. The student may put a small object in the egg or a picture to represent a character, a setting, an important object, or an idea. The student decorates an egg carton to go with the book (being sure to include the title of the book and the author). You could also have the students each write a few sentences about the contents of each egg – what it is and why it is important to the story. Here are 15 more terrific book projects.