Thursday, March 5, 2020

Extra Plastic Eggs and Reading


READING  EGGS

        Before Easter my fifth graders make Easter baskets for a local food pantry. 120 Easter baskets filled with candy, toys, books, school supplies, toothpaste and brushes , and lots of plastic eggs will be donated.  The supply of plastic eggs was overwhelming.  So, needless to say, eggs were left over.  

       What do you do with left over plastic eggs?  I say, make a learning activity for the younger students in our school.  I saw this posted on Pinterest several times and thought this would be perfect.

          We played a game called " Are  you smarter than a 1st grader?"
        I made a list of basic word endings such as at, am, it, eg, ing, ank, etc. The list had at more that 30 word parts. All the 1st grade teachers know what they are.











     Each of my 5th graders chose a word part and made as many words to make a word family.  The students had to print their words because the 1st graders would need to be able to read the words.

    The next step was to print the word ending on a little piece of a sticker and place it on the right side of the egg.  The beginning letters were printed on other little stickers and placed on the left side of the egg.







     The final step was to paint a coat of modge podge over the stickers so they would adhere to the plastic eggs. Some eggs needed more than one coat of modge podge to make sure the stickers were on very well. 
     
       We took a left over Easter basket and filled it with all the eggs.


     
         My students had to realize that their letters had to be printed neatly enough for our 1st grade friends to read.  

         A few extra minutes of time can be spent on a project for someone else.  Now my students can grab an egg and use their spelling skills to help a younger child. 

         When the student in our school reach 7th and 8th grade they have the opportunity to become a tutor in our NJHS ( National Junior Honor Society) tutoring program.  These eggs will be used while tutoring. Kids love to play games and these eggs will do the trick.

     I linked up with Doodle Bugs Teaching today.
      
Please leave a comment if you have a spare minute in your busy day. 
   
   I hope you have a wonderful day.
Beti 

2 comments:

  1. As a kindergarten teacher, I love this idea for leftover plastic eggs! What a great way to encourage working between grade levels!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the idea you had for the eggs! It was also great that they saw how important neat handwriting is while they worked on it!

    ReplyDelete