Spring Time Activity

 

Between the warm weather, sun shining, and spring break approaching the students are ready to get outside.  You may have noticed that this time of year is harder for students to stay focused.  I find that activities help with this focus.  This is one activity which is easy to set up and complete.

First, I have students write out the problems from a set on the board.  I show 75-100 problems on the board and they pick 8 to write on their paper.  Yes, you will have some duplicates but this saves times.  I have done a similar activity where I wrote out and cut out all of the problems and it took several days to set up.  Also, have the students cut out the problems and place them in the eggs.  I recommend having a basket or bin in your classroom to collect completed eggs.

Next, you hid the eggs the next day for students.  I have clipboards in my room so students can grab a clipboard and we head outside.  They will find and solve 8 eggs.  Once they have completed an egg, they can hide the egg for the next class.  I suggest setting ground rules for where they can hide the eggs.  

When your last class of the day comes out to do the activity, have them place the eggs in a container when they finish.  You will still have to double check the area for eggs but this should get the majority of the eggs back.  This will allow the students to get active and outside while doing math.  

I like to do 8 problems because in a regular class period of practice they can get through around 10.  For your advanced students, you could hide golden eggs which have harder problems and tell them atleast 1 of their 8 problems has to be a golden egg.  

If you want to have 1 big challenge question, you can hide a special egg and let them know the first person to complete 8 problems, find the special egg, and correctly solve it wins a prize.  It's important to emphasize they need 8 problems completed first, this will ensure they are working while searching for the special egg.  One way to make an special egg, is to add a glow stick inside of it.  This can be unique to just this egg so students know when they have found it.  If you plan on doing this as a class challenge, you will want to hide more than 1 and collect it from the person each time.