17 April, 2011

Easter Egg Hunt & Science

I have been soooooo busy lately and
a bad bad blogger. ( I wear a cone of shame)
I thought I would make it up to you with a
FREEBIE!!!
We are in the middle of our animal / habitat unit and
we did The Egg Hunt (can't say Easter or one of my kids couldn't participate).
it was a wonderful (if i do say so myself) camouflage activity!!!
You will need to get some eggs first...lots of eggs!!!
LOTS AND LOTS of the regular BRIGHT colored plastic snap eggs and
a few bags of these

I found these at Target
for about $5

Anyways ~ we had some wonderful parents come in and stuff the eggs for us.
The non camo got a simple treat (candy and erasers) and
the camo, which were much harder to find, got some real goodies inside.
We do Mustang Bucks at my school so some of them had that and others
had homework passes and double candy... you get the point)
we even hid 3 GOLDEN EGGS!!!
Those were filled with BIG BUCKS and goodies

AND our AWESOME parents even
HID the eggs for us!!!
We did have to go make sure the camo were well camouflaged but overall the
parents did a great job.
NOTE:  we did not cover up  or bury any eggs... they were just camouflaged!!!
THEN...
We handed out this paper.
The kids were told how many eggs they were allowed to get
according to what grade they got on a Math Test and a Reading Test.
For example;
If you got an A you got 3 eggs
B got 2
C got 1
NOTE: they were given advanced notice of this BONUS activity and were told to STUDY STUDY STUDY ...and... we modified were we needed to if you know what I mean *WINK*

So if a student got an A on both the Reading and Math test they could hunt for 6 eggs
Make sense???
The amount of eggs they could hunt matched the minutes allowed to hunt.
6 eggs = 6 minutes
and so on.

We lined the kids up according to how many minutes they had to hunt.
6 minute "hunters" were in front followed by 5 minute "hunters"
you get the idea!!!

Once you have all of the "HUNTERS" ready to go,
you tell them...
once they  grab an egg it is theirs... no putting eggs back
you also tell them about the 3 golden eggs
YOU DO NOT tell them that some eggs are camouflaged!!!

Our school recently got "updated" (what ev) and the WONDERFUL construction crew
did a great job protecting our beautiful grass SEE
(sarcasm)
We set a timer for 6 minutes and let the 6 minute hunters go HUNTING
at the 5 minutes you let the 5 minute HUNTERS go and so on
(this represents competition)
Once they have collected all their eggs they will line up in a designated area.
THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO OPEN THE EGGS UNTIL EVERYTHING IS DONE!!!

This is a 6 minute HUNTER counting his eggs
and you can see the 2 minute hunters waiting to be released for their HUNT!!!

Be careful you will need to count the eggs as they come in to make sure they were not sneaky hunters.
This smiley needed to get one more.
She insisted there were NO more BUT we did our calculations prior to the HUNT
 and there were PLENTY for everyone with some left over!!!
She had enough time to go get one more!!!
NOTE: We took a list outside to double check our HUNTERS egg collections

When the 6 minutes were up everyone went inside and worked on their paper.
Ignore the coloring sheets PUHLEASE
the librarians thought it would be cute for the kids to color a pic for FIESTA
do you see what I see
YEPPERS a margarita glass
VIVA FIESTA

OK BACK TO THE HUNT...
the kids filled out the front of their papers...
then we stopped to talk about the hunt
( still no opening of the eggs... it was my way to get them to get ALL of the paper completed)
we discussed which eggs were easier to find
which were the hardest
and why
We talked about competition and how the 6 minute hunters had an advantage UNTIL the others were released...
we talked about who had to be STRONGER hunters
and WHY some HUNTERS didn't get ALL of their eggs
(they spent too much time looking for the GOLD eggs and then had to be a stronger hunter)
We had a really good discussion.
One kid brought up the idea of bird migrations and how the first birds to arrive have more food to choose from.  We also thought about the nearby bat cave and how they fly out every night and the leaders might have a bigger advantage.  I was proud of their discussion!!!

Then we collected our class data for the back of the paper and graphed our data.
When they answered the last question and I approved it...they could open their eggs....
MY CAMERA DIED so no pics.... BUT the owners of the bright colored eggs (which were mostly my 6 minute HUNTERS) were disappointed in their prizes.

I collected all the eggs from my kids and told them I needed them for next year.... which they were ok with!!!
I {PUFFY} heart LOVE this activity and I hope it is not too late for you to do it too!!!
Let me know what you think and I hope I explained it OK!!!
While I was blogging I was getting decorated by my 2 year old!!!

BATH TIME!!!!

Have a great next week!!!
NOTE... click on the pics of the FORMS and they are yours!!! ENJOY!!!!
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