With Easter on its way we decided to do an 'e' is for 'egg' theme! Click one of these links to see similar themes from previous years, or keep scrolling to take a look at the fun activities we did this week!
~ Literacy ~
Books
Here are the books we borrowed from the library this week! We particularly enjoyed Eggbert, the Slightly Cracked Egg and An Extraordinary Egg. But honestly, they were all really great. While some are very informative, they remain cute and age-appropriate for young kids.
Do-A-Dot E
We always begin our alphabet units with some sort of dot marker page. This one comes from Shannon's Tot School. I gave Little M&M the option to use magnetic pom poms or dot markers, and he chose the former.
Scissor Skills
Honey Pot's scissor worksheet comes from Itsy Bitsy Fun. In the past she had often gotten frustrated with cutting activities, but we worked slowly and positively through this one. She did really great, and I think her confidence has improved.
For Little M&M I just drew a straight line across some egg-shaped paper cutouts that we have in multitude. He needed guidance often in holding the scissors properly, but did pretty well overall I think!
Tracing Lines - Egg Maze
This printable comes from a website called imgkid. I printed each as a half-sheet and the size worked fine for us. It was a nice quick activity.
What's in the Egg Game - A-E Review
This idea comes from Considerate Classroom. I loved the simplicity. I drew five colored eggs on one side of a piece of paper, and wrote the letters A-E on the other side. Then I filled each coordinating egg with one of the letters.
Little M&M popped open an egg and had to identify the letter inside. If he didn't know what it was, I would tell him. Then he'd find it on the paper, and draw a line connecting it to the color of the egg it came out of.
He had fun with this, and it was a terrific review!
Additionally, we also listened to A-E on our Leap Frog Fridge Phonics.
CVC Sight Reading
I saw this activity on Mess for Less, and gave it a try with our egg-shaped paper cutouts. I wrote a few word-endings on some eggs, and then various letters on other eggs. Honey Pot had to pick up a word-ending egg, and form words with eggs in the other set.
Here is what she came up with. She read them all so well! Some of the time she would pick a letter and then read the word she created. Other times, after reading the word-ending egg, she would say a word that ends with that sound, and then find the letter to create it!
~ Math and Cognitive Skills ~
What's in the Egg Game - Numbers 1-5
We enjoyed the What's in the Egg Game so much with letters A-E, that I decided to create one for Little M&M to review numbers 1-5 as well. Instead of letters, I filled each egg with a certain number of colored pom poms.
Little M&M popped open an egg and counted up the pom poms inside.
Then he found the number on the page (sometimes with help) and drew a line from that number to the colored egg he had just opened.
He had a lot of fun with this!
His lines sometimes take a roundabout route to their destinations, but they always get there!
Color by Number
I found a cute set of color-by-numbers from Life is Peachy. Another quick activity, and a good review for number recognition.
Making Patterns
I created a quick template on cardstock for our egg patterns. This is the set I created for Honey Pot:
She had no trouble, and really enjoys pattern work.
For a real challenge, she created her own pattern, and completed the whole page with it!
Then it was Little M&M's turn. He is still learning this concept, so we only tried a few simple patterns.
Scavenger Hunt + Creating Patterned Eggs
We did this fun activity last year, and decided to do it again. First the kids went on a hunt around the living room for the egg pieces that I had hidden.
Then they lined them up and counted them to make sure they had all twelve pieces.
I had drawn various combinations on a piece of paper for them to copy. First it was Honey Pot's turn. She arranged all of the pieces in order, to make assembly easier!
Then she put her fine motor skills to work!
Awesome job!
Little M&M tried his hand at this activity too. He did fairly well, though snapping them together was quite tricky!
He even pulled this activity out another day to further hone his skills!
Here he is checking the paper to see which piece he needs to complete the pattern...
So pleased with himself... :)
Egg + Nest Game - Positional Words
We worked on understanding positional words today with this simple egg and nest game. I wrote the words on squares of paper, then turned them all face down.
The kids took turns picking up a square and I read what it said. Then they had to place the egg in that position in relation to the nest.
As we ran out of squares, I invented a few more. Little M&M was assigned this one, and needed to place the egg "far away from" the nest.
It was a good game! And in the end, I let them have some sensory fun with our makeshift nest.
Color Combinations
During the pattern activity from earlier in the week, I thought up another quick activity we could do that would help review color combinations. I clicked together three mixed eggs, and filled each with a pom pom in the color that they would create. First Honey Pot picked up the pink and blue egg, and I asked her if she knew what color they would make mixed together. She guessed it correctly, and opened it up to find a purple pom pom inside.
She picked up the blue + yellow egg, and thought about what those two colors make when mixed together.
Green!
And finally, what do yellow + pink make?
Orange!
Little M&M tried out this game too. He loved watching the pom poms fly out of the eggs when he popped them open.
~ Music ~
Sound Matching Game
This idea comes from Learn Play Imagine. I filled twelve eggs with six different types of items to create different sounds (pennies, rice, beads, bells, Cheerios and popcorn kernels) and taped them closed. Then I put them all in a basket, and asked the kids to find the pairs of eggs with matching sounds. This was tricky! I noticed Little M&M kept testing the eggs of the same color first.
It was always such a celebration when they sounded the same!
Silly boy...
Honey Pot enjoyed this one too!
She matched them up so quickly!
And Little M&M brought the basket out later in the week to play the game again!
Just as fun!
~ Crafts ~
Gluing Eggs - 'E' Craft
We used our handy, dandy, egg-shaped paper cutouts again for Little M&M to glue onto a big letter E. He worked very diligently on this craft.
And the finished product is very cute!
Plastic Egg Prints
I saw this idea from Learn Play Imagine as well. The kids were so excited to try it out!
They worked very hard on this.
They enjoyed it so much that they each did it twice!
Then the project evolved into finger-painting and hand-prints, so I gave them some scrap paper for that.
They had a blast. I've learned to let crafts go where they want them to go. We'd deal with the mess later.
When the original prints had dried, I cut them into egg shapes. We hung them up on the wall with Little M&M's 'E' project, to begin our wall of Easter crafts!
~ Science ~
Scavenger Hunt + Oviparous Animals
The printable for this comes from Teachers Pay Teachers, but it was free! I altered the sorting grid slightly, to get rid of the wording. I didn't mention the word "oviparous" and kept it simple for them. First I cut out the animals, two sets of the oviparous and one set of the non-oviparous. I placed one set of oviparous animals in plastic eggs, and hid them around the room. They love scavenger hunts!
Then I provided them with the sorting grid and the complete set of animals.
I'd ask, "Can you name an animal that lays eggs?" They had to open the eggs and tell me what animal was inside. Then they could find the matching animal and place it in the egg column. The remaining animals could go in the non-egg column.
In the end, they had a good idea of which animals lay eggs and which do not!
Sink or Float Experiment
We finished out the week with an experiment. I poured two glasses of water and placed them in front of the kids. Then we added a few tablespoons of salt to one of them. Honey Pot mixed it in for us.
Then we made hypotheses about what would happen if we placed an egg inside of the water. Little M&M tested it out by putting an egg in the cup with just water. It sank.
Then Honey Pot put an egg in the cup with salt water, and it floated. They were pretty impressed. We talked about the greater density of the saltwater, and how it caused the egg to float. We related it to freshwater verses the saltwater of the ocean.
Oh, and here's another thing we went over this week...a new joke for their repertoire:
What does an egg do when you tell it a joke?
It cracks up!
********************************************************************
