As Easter approaches, I wanted to incorporate some themed activities into math for both my kiddos. With one in second grade and one in pre-K , I had to come up with a wide range of activities and I wanted to keep the materials and prep time minimal. I decided to just use plastic Easter eggs, jellybeans, and dice. Using only these three materials, I was able to come up with ten different math activities that are great for centers, early finishers, review, or just for fun!
Numerical Order
Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Have students open the eggs, count the number inside, and then write the amount on the egg with a dry erase marker. (The dry erase markers come off very easily.) When they have counted the jellybeans in all the eggs, have them arrange the eggs in numerical order. You can do smallest to largest or largest to smallest.
The Egg Roll: Addition, Subtraction, or Multiplication
Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Students choose an egg, count how many jellybeans are inside and record their answer. Then, they roll a die or dice and add the number they roll to the amount of jellybeans they counted. They can also subtract the number they roll from the amount of jellybeans, or multiply the number by the amount of jellybeans. Simply increasing or decreasing the number of jellybeans and using one or two dice in this activity can increase or decrease the difficulty.
Eggs & Estimation
Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Have students choose an egg, shake it, and record their estimation of how many jellybeans it has inside. Next, they open the egg and count the jellybeans inside and record their answer. Finally, they analyze their estimate my deciding if it was more, less, or the same as the actual number of jellybeans inside. For older students, once they count how many jellybeans are inside you can have them decide if the amount is an even or odd number, or have them round the amount to the nearest ten.
Equal Eggs Quest
Fill eggs with various amounts of jellybeans. Students choose two eggs, open them and count the number of jellybeans inside, and then compare the amounts. You can have them record their answers using the symbols >, <, and =, or for younger students have them record the largest or smallest number.
Egg Roll and Color
In this activity, I created a striped Easter egg, had my kids roll a die or dice, and color each stripe according to the different numbers they landed on with each roll. When finished, younger students can simply count how many stripes they have of each color and older students can write the amounts of each color as a fraction of the whole. The above picture is the one my second grade daughter did with fractions.
Making Ten
My son is working hard on learning addition and subtraction facts to ten so this was an activity just for him. You can fill eggs with ten jellybeans consisting of only two colors. For example, you might put in 3 red jellybeans and 7 green jellybeans. When students open each egg, they count how many they have of each color and write a number sentence to represent the amount.
One Hundred Eggs
Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Students choose an egg, count how many jellybeans are inside, and fill in that amount on their hundred chart. Then, they roll the die or dice and add that amount to the number they started with, coloring in the amount. They keep rolling, adding, and coloring until the reach 100.
Equal Eggs
My daughter did this activity but I think younger ones could do this with a little bit of guidance. It’s a great introduction to dividing. Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Students open an egg, count how many jellybeans are inside, divide the jellybeans into 2 (or 3) groups, and count how many jellybeans are in each group.
Let’s “Eggs”amine Fractions
My daughter has been working on fractions recently so this activity was one I made for her. Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Students open an egg, count how many they have of each color, and record the amount for each color as a fraction of the whole.
Graph It!
Fill eggs with different amounts of jellybeans. Students open an egg, count how many jellybeans they have of each color, and record their results on a graph. When finished, we analyzed the results by answering questions about the information in the graphs.
My kids have had a lot of fun with these math activities. In fact, my youngest asks me everyday if we’re going to do any egg games. 🙂 You can easily and quickly set up these same activities in your classroom or home. In case your interested in using the same printables I used for them, I have them in my TPT store: a set for K-1 and a set for 2-3.