Easter Egg Hunt!

So, last year I put an easter egg hunt together (complete with math problems). It was a lot of work, but
once it was done it was ready for years to come! I was a little hesitant on doing this in my classroom
because I’m not a fan of total chaos, but I came up with what I have to say is a BRILLIANT way to
conduct the game. It’s worked like a charm for 2 years now.

Here’s what I did:

I printed off some worksheets over LOTS of different skills. I labeled each question on each worksheet
with a different letter of the alphabet (A1, A2, B1, B2 etc) and made my key with the corresponding
letters and numbers. One note here, I wish I would have used completely different sounding letters-I
had C, D and E. Next time… Once I had the worksheets and keys made I laminated the worksheets
and cut the questions up. I then folded them and stuffed Easter eggs with the questions. I think I had
over 100 eggs.

Now for the fun part.

Before class, I put the eggs all over the perimeter of the room. Most were in plain sight but some were
less noticeable. I didn’t put any INSIDE cabinets or drawers because I didn’t want my students tearing
up my room. As they came into my class I told them to go straight to their seat and not to touch any of
the eggs. That peaked their interest.

Ahead of time, I made a list and divided my students into groups of 4 (I had some classes with a group
of 3 and some with a group of 5 but it all worked out). I called the names in each group and had them
gather together then pair off (those with odd numbers had to have one person work alone). I then told
them where to sit (a pair from team 1 sit here, team 2 here...etc) making sure the pairs were as far
away from each other as possible.

At the front of the room I had some Easter buckets numbered 1-5 (I had a class of 21 so I had 5 groups
of 4. Smaller classes would need less buckets.) I then ran through the rules of the game by choosing a
pair of students (I’ll call them Fred and Joe) and walking through the steps:

Both students have a piece of paper and pencil. FRED goes first and gets an egg. He brings it back to
the desk and opens it. They both write the question number (and letter) on their paper then both students
work together to determine the answer. Once they have an answer, they put the question back in the
egg, close it up and JOE brings the egg and his paper to me (I am standing in a centrally located area
next to a desk that has the buckets on it and a bag). If someone is already talking to me students form
a line. Joe tells me the question letter and number and after I have located the answer, he tells me his
answer. If he is correct, he puts his egg in his team’s bucket. If not, he puts it in the bag. He then finds
an egg, brings it to the desk where he and Fred answer the question. Then FRED brings the answer to
me and finds the next egg. At no time should both students be away from their desk-one at a time.

About 5-10 minutes before the bell rings we stop the game (those who have an egg at their desks are
allowed to finish answering their question) and I the eggs in the buckets. The team with the most eggs
get a prize (I gave 3 small pieces of candy to the winning team members, 2 to the 2nd place team
members and 1 to everyone else)

Things I stress:

One person is hunting eggs at a time.

ONE egg at a time is taken to the desk.

No pushing and shoving etc. to get to an egg.

Make sure you have the correct letter and number of the problem written down and speak clearly
when telling them to me.

Make sure you put your eggs in the correct bucket.

Anyone breaking any of the first 3 rules had to quit the game and do a worksheet.

Toward the end of the game you may run out of eggs. As long as there was one team with an egg I
told everyone to keep hunting (one from each pair). If no one could find any more I told them that they
had 2 minutes where BOTH team members could hunt but if one of them found an egg they went back
to their desk and worked on the problem. If no one had an egg after 2 minutes of everyone looking, the
game is called and the eggs are counted.

One of the great things about this game is that as soon as it’s over your ready for the next game. (If I
have back to back classes I let the first class hide the eggs for the next class-stressing the “not in
drawers” etc.). In minutes you’re ready for the next class. After the last class has played, just put all the
eggs in the bag and you’re ready for next year. Easy Peasy!

I just pulled this out today and my kids LOVED it, even with the math problems. They said it was
“surprisingly fun”. They answered around 20 correct questions per team (one team had 26!) as well as
all the questions they didn’t get correct, and they were disappointed when they ran out of eggs. I can
NEVER get them to work out that many math questions on a regular worksheet.

BTW you don’t HAVE to laminate the questions. It just makes them more durable so they can be used
over and over, and it deters the students from writing on the questions. Also, I prefer to “laminate” my
questions with clear contact paper. It seems to work better than the school laminating.

I hope you give it a try! It’s worth the effort.