Easter Egg Hunt Fun

Easter is almost here which makes it a great time for one of my students' favorite activities... Easter egg hunts! I have to admit this is one of my favorite activities too. The kids are just so cute racing around the classroom trying to collect their eggs!

Another reason I love Easter egg hunts is that you can adapt them for almost any subject or skill level. Below is a picture of one of my kinders. Her goals include number identification, number sorting, fine motor skills, and color identification. Today's Easter egg was a perfect way to gather all of this IEP data in one session while best of all she was having a blast!

Beforehand, I put small #1-5 flashcards in the eggs and hid them around our work table. Then, I had her collect the eggs while identifying each color as she put them in her bucket. Then, she practiced her fine motor skills by opening each egg and practiced her numeracy skills by identifying each number. As she took the numbers out she sorted them. Then, when we were all finished she put the eggs back together.

I especially loved today's activity because this student is very shy and hard to understand because she whispers. She is also not very confident in her abilities because she is such a new learner. This causes the whispering to be even worse. However, she was SO excited about this activity that she wasn't even thinking about all the information she was giving me! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE when my kids have so much fun they don't even realize they are learning! It makes teaching so much more fun for me!

More great Easter egg hunt ideas:
Time- just cut up a worksheet and put the clocks in the eggs
Money- put single coins in for coin ID or a small group of coins for counting coins
Measurement- put in various lengths of string to be measured
Computation- cut up a computation worksheet to be solved or have students pick two eggs and add/subtract the numbers
Counting- put small counters or beans in each egg to be counted
Sight/CVC words-have students read small slips of paper in the egg
Story Elements- write story elements on slips of paper and have students ID
Letter/Sound ID- put small flashcards in each egg and have students identify the name and sound
Spelling- use pictures for students to label

Pretty much anything you can find or make small enough to fit in an egg can become a part of the game! Although this works perfectly for my small groups in the MD classroom, it may be more difficult in the general ed classroom with 20+ kids. I would suggest making the Easter egg hunt a part of a center. Numbering each egg and a corresponding worksheet for students to record answers would be a great way to monitor their progress.