Even twenty somethings want an Easter egg hunt!

Goodness knows I've organized my share of Easter egg hunts, for first grade, preschool, and extended family! This year is going to be a little different: an Easter egg hunt for my married twenty something year old sons. What to do?

Hatching my idea

I'll admit, my first thought was that they'd think an egg hunt is lame and refuse to get into it - which is actually what gave me the idea.  There's no way my grown sons would get excited about running around the backyard for mini candy bars and plastic toys (sometimes I miss them being 3). So what WOULD they get excited about?

Important fact #1: My kids are competitive.

Important fact #2: The prizes don't actually have to go in the eggs.

Important fact #3: The only thing lamer than getting $1 in an egg is getting $1 in an egg when your brother / wife / sister-in-law just got $20.

Important fact #4: I have a lot of different kinds of plastic "eggs".

Do you see the possibilities?

The set up

I'm turning this Easter egg hunt into a competition. I have 5 kinds of "egg" so I need 5 categories. In each category I need 4 prizes (for 4 kids). The prizes SHOULD NOT be equal - to get everyone motivated there have to be SOME prizes worth working for and some that you'll catch grief about for the rest of your life. (Good spirited teasing = love around here).  Depending on your family and your kids you may have all kinds of categories, no judgement on what's right for you and yours! Here's what's happening for me and mine:

Candy: large bag of m&ms, full size candy bar, mini candy bar, a single mint candy.

Fruit: pineapple, punnet of strawberries, a banana, a grape

Beverages: bottle of alcohol (remember, no judgement, you do you!), tiny bottle of alcohol, can of soda, can of grapefruit juice.

Money: $20, $10, $5, $1

Gift cards: Starbucks, Target, Walmart, Dollar Store (different small amounts)

I'll have the prizes on a table, sorted by category. 

How to play

Each person is allowed to collect 1 of each kind of egg. They're going to want to bring it to me quickly - because first come, first served. You got an egg for the money category? First person gets the $20. Second one gets the $10, etc. Give me the egg, grab your prize, go find another egg! The faster you are, the better your prizes! Slow poke wins a grape, $1, grapefruit juice, a tiny gift card, and a mint - not a terrible prize, unless your brother got $20, a bottle of booze, a pineapple, bag of candy and $15 Starbucks card!

The twist

Of course there's a twist! There's one more egg, and it's a doozy. After everything else is said and done the person with the golden egg gets to switch prizes in 1 category with ANYONE else!

 The outcome

 I can't wait to see how this plays out! I think - hope - they're going to love it. It would be great if they said something like, "You're the best mom in the world and I love you to the moon and back!" I won't hold my breath on that one, but maybe, just maybe, I'll hear "Thanks mom!" and get a couple of big hugs. THAT'S what I want for Easter. Wish me luck!

Paula

P.S. What other categories popped into your head? LMK - maybe I'll add it to our fun!

Letter E (part two)

About ten years ago I attended a training by Janet Chambers, a teacher-author who shared wonderful ideas about teaching literacy.  One of her ideas that really stuck with me was that of a "big event" to introduce each letter of the alphabet.  Ever since, we've had an alphabet worth of big events here at school each year. (See her book, Ready, Set, READ here.)

For the letter E, I've put together a small Easter basket of plastic eggs, each with something that begins with the letter e: envelope, Elmo, toy eggs, elephants - and some that are empty.  The kiddos LOVE it!

 I also took two groups of children to the zoo, to see the elephants (and of course, other animals.)

 

 I have to admit, I was surprised that the children had an idea in mind for the letter E, and were quite insistent that we do their activity: an Easter egg hunt.  I certainly didn't mind, I had that in mind myself, but I think it says something about the relevance of the activity, that the children who reviewed E with egg hunts last April remember it, and wanted to revisit it.  Not for candy, our eggs were empty every time except for our Good Friday egg hunt.  They loved the hiding and the seeking.  Needless to say, I dug out 6 dozen eggs, some baskets, buckets from the sandbox, and we had at it! 

 The kiddos hid the eggs (usually in a big clump, in "their" spot, so they could find them again quickly.)

 We lined up, and....

 Go!

 We hid and found the eggs over and over!

.

Next week, letter F!

Baby Chick Count book and game

 Today we finished making a really cute counting book, which the kiddos are loving!  We did this with our Easter and Spring activities, but it would also go well with a farm theme, or could be modified to go along with a counting rhyme, like Five Little Ducks.  I want to share, it's so adorable!

I saw the idea on pinterest, and even although the original site is in Russian, the pictures communicated beautifully. 

 To follow up, I wrote numerals and number words on index cards, and added yellow dots to the back to make it self checking.  I put the cards in a basket with a large orange pompon (momma hen) and a dozen small yellow pompons (chicks).  The kiddos loved it!  Some of our preschoolers need to practice counting with 1-1 correspondence, as well as reading numerals.  The older kiddos who are reading worked with number words.  We'll keep this center out for a while!

Exciting E

 It is still 3 full weeks until Easter, but  I can't think of anything better to review the letter E.  First of all, it is meaningful to the children.  Between "Easter" and "eggs" we have both the long and short vowel sounds.  There are many, many terrific books about it, and of course, any number of fun Easter things to play and learn with. 

I read the children Seven Eggs, by Meredith Hooper, to get us started.  In the story, one egg opens each day for a week, so as we read we predicted which day would be next, and what might hatch out of each egg.  The eggs all looked different, so the children thought different animals would hatch from each one, and they were right.  The hatchlings included reptiles and birds, but the children also predicted frogs, (okay, and hippos) so I was pleased to see they remembered many different kinds of animals that lay eggs.

After we read, I pulled out my bag of empty Easter eggs, and some treats to stuff them with.  Each year, the children's parents send in just the treats, and the children stuff the plastic eggs I've collected over many years.  I've included some of the things we put in the eggs this year, to show some of the non-candy options: necklaces, rings, jewels, bubbles, plastic animals, hair doodads, stamps... other possibilities include stickers, coins, tiny toy cars.  Please please, keep in mind the ages of the children you are catering to, and supervise closely for children that mouth small parts.

To stuff the eggs with a class full of kiddos, we sit in a circle, and I roll one or two empty eggs to each child, and then the treat(s) to put in the egg.  The children open their eggs, stuff them, and close them up again, then hold it straight up in the air for the other teacher to collect.  When they're ready for another egg, they hold their hands out in front of them, to show me they'd like another.  We train the children to do it this way so they understand that we don't want a dozen children yelling at us for help, for more, for ... well, really, for anything!  Each day from now until Easter, or until the eggs are all filled, we'll stuff a few eggs.  The children LOVE doing this, seeing the treats, and helping to prepare for our big Easter egg hunt.  Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of this in action - I was very busy handing out treats and eggs!

Some of my young artists wanted to draw and decorate eggs to follow up, so I offered a variety of stencils with ovals, hearts and star shapes to help them make their shapes.  We had a lot of egg pictures today, and the stencils will stay available in the art center for as long as the children are interested in them.

When we went outside, we took 50 empty plastic eggs and a bunch of baskets and containers with us.  The children all hid the eggs in the backyard, then came back together, counted down from ten to zero, and... ran!

They hid the eggs over and over and over again!  This game will also go on for weeks, they never get tired of it.  This will give us a lot of opportunities to think about how we can be fair to each other as we hunt eggs, to practice getting some, but not being too greedy, and to see that our youngest friends move a little slower than the biggest kiddos, and to understand why I'll let them start the real hunt before their older friends.

 Eventually the crazed rush of our first attempts calms down, and this becomes a much more peaceful less crazy experience.  The real egg hunt will still be super fun - that's when there will be surprises in our eggs - but instead of a having just a brief frenzy of egg snatching and strong emotions on a single day, this practice allows the children to satisfy their desire to do it over and again.  Isn't that what every child wants?

Happy Spring!