Stress-Free is the way to be. Every holiday you should be Stress-Free. If you happen to celebrate Easter in your classroom or if you would just like some ideas for using Easter Materials for some fun in your classroom, check out these Stress-Free Easter activities, games, and ideas using items you may already have available.
Stress-Free Holidays and Celebrations
I’m all about making holidays and special occasions as stress-free as possible. If you have been teaching for any time at all, you know that kids get a bit wound up those days. Making things easy and stress-free helps feed the crazies and the excitement and keeps things managable. If you need ideas for other days and how to keep them stress-free, check out these posts:
STRESS-FREE EASTER
Like all the other Stress-Free days in the year, Easter will follow a similar set up where students will run through a series of fun Stations. Depending on how many students I have each year, that could be 5 – 7 different stations. The choice is up to you. Here’s a collection of activities that you can include in your own stress-free day.
A HOME FOR PEEP
Before you commit to this activity, make sure you don’t have any allergies in your classroom. It’s a pretty open ended activity and needs little supervision. How it works is that students use toothpicks and jelly beans to build a home for their ‘Peep.’ Cheap jellybeans work the best.
Materials Needed:
- jellybeans (I get the biggest, cheapest ones I can find at the Dollar Tree.
- Toothpicks
- Peeps (I personally hate Peeps. Too sweet! Fortunately, most kids love them so get a variety.)
- Waxed paper or a paper plate for your building surface.
EGG-CELLENT TOWERS
Next, I have another really fun STEM activity using inexpensive plastic eggs and play-doh!
Students are challenged to build a tower as high as they can using only full plastic Easter Eggs and dough. It seems easy enough. However, it takes them a while to figure out that they need a very solid base to make the tower sturdy enough to give it any height. I like to let them figure this out on their own. It’s tougher than it looks, but it’s also tons of fun.
Materials you will need:
- At least 10 Plastic Easter eggs per child at this station
- Dough
EASTER Q-TIP DOTTERS
Q-tip painting pages are a MUST for any stress-free day. I have some fun Spring themed pages in my April Morning Work Stations packet, or you can find a entire set of Easter-themed pages in my Easter Dotter Set.
Or check out the entire bundle.
EASTER LEGO CHALLENGE
Next, Legos are another great tool to use to keep students engaged in activities during these stress-free stations. I challenge my students to make their own Easter Egg design.
Using a variety of colors and shapes, they can create a pattern of their own. And . . . really . . . who doesn’t love Legos?
EGG WORD FAMILIES
There are two different ways you could do this activity depending on what you have available. If you have traditional 2 piece plastic eggs, you can use these as word family builders. Write some word families on the back end of the egg and onsets to go with the rhyme on the back. For instance, if you write “at” on the back end of the egg, you could write, “c, s, f, and p’ on the front. Students put the eggs together to create words that are real or nonsense and can record.
Similarly, I have also done this activity with three pieced eggs and had them put the eggs together and/or spin the pieces to make real and nonsense words.
Materials:
- either 2 pieces or 3 pieces Easter Eggs
- black Sharpie
EGG-CELLENT WORD BUILDING
By using a little dough and some magnets, you can transform your Easter eggs into freestanding letters. I like to use a little non-hardening dough but you could also just use a hot glue gun to secure the magnet as well. Once the magnet is secure, students can use the eggs to build CVC or sight words.
Materials:
EGG-CELLENT DIFFERENTIATED WORD WORK PUZZLES (FREE)
Just in case your students might have access to a printer, I’m putting this FREEBIE here, too. It’s great fun, free and differentiated. Click HERE to head to the post where you can get it for free.
EGG STACKING RACES
Next, how about a fun game. Egg stacking races might just be the ticket. Set the timer for one minute and see who can stack the most half egg pieces. It’s not as easy as it looks. The eggs tend to slip and tip. You have to have patience and a steady hand.
Materials:
- 1/2 pieces of Easter eggs (if they are all the same size it’s easiest)
- timer
EASTER PLAY-DOH MATS
These Springtime/Easter play-doh mats from my April Morning Work Stations packet are a perfect, independent station to keep students engaged and having fun. Click HERE to learn more.
And that’s it friends. Even if Easter is over, your students will still love these activities and parents will love that they can use items they already have. If you’d like to pin this to remember it for next year, just use the picture below.
For more hands-on activities like these, make sure you check out my Morning Work Stations.
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