Today’s STEAM Activity is learning with Easter eggs! We transformed our plastic Easter eggs into home learning tools!
Lately my kids don’t want to do school work at home. The more I ask them to do work, the less they cooperate. So I turned to Pintrest for inspiration. After endless scrolling I found this activity. It sounded so fun for the kids, and we are overrun with plastic Easter eggs, so I wanted to give it a try!
MATERIALS:
- Plastic Easter eggs
- Black permanent marker
PROCEDURE:
- Number eggs: write the number symbol (ex. 3) on the top half of the egg and spell the number word (ex. three) on the bottom half. On the other side of the egg do subitizing practice with dots (like on a dice) on the top and tally marks on the bottom. Create number eggs for 1-10, then take them apart. Ask you child to find the matching halves to each number egg, they can match symbol & word and/or the subitizing symbols.
2. Letter eggs: write upper case letters on the top and lower case on the bottom. Mix it up and have your child match the upper and lower case letters.
3. Word eggs: on the bottom (small side) of the egg write the letters: b, c, d, f, h, m, s, t (evenly space them writing them as shown in the picture). On the top of the egg write the word endings: ar, op, og, all, it, un, at, en. Ask your child to create as many words as possible by spinning the egg to match first letters with endings. We worked with one word ending at a time and spin only the first letter to make words. Once we found all the words for the ending, we moved to the next word ending. I also had my son practice his writing by writing down all the words he found on the egg.
4. Addition eggs: write equations in the top (1+2, 3+4, 5+3…)and answers in the bottom (3, 7, 8…). Mix it up and have your child find the answer to the addition problem.
STEAM CONCEPTS LEARNED:
- Arts: spelling and letters falls under language arts and is a critical STEAM skill. To be successful in STEM all professionals need to be able to read and write well. This starts with learning to recognize letters and simple sight words for young kids.
- Math: the eggs provide a great way to practice basic math, from learning numbers and subitizing to addition, my kids loved the math eggs!
I liked how this enabled my kids to learn concepts they would be practicing in school in a fun, seasonally appropriate activity. After they’ve done some home learning with these activities, why not let them take out their frustrations on the learning eggs by catapulting them across the room?! You can learn how to make the Easter Egg Catapults here.
Are you going to try this learning tool at home with your kids?
