Do you look at holidays as a distraction or a focus point? Holidays can be an exciting time for kids, which can lead to some distraction at school, but I’ve found that I can use students’ interest and energy in Easter to keep lessons fresh and fun for my students. Last week I shared some ideas for using Easter writing activities in your class. Today, let’s talk about teaching math and spelling with an Easter theme.
Easter math activities
You can reframe most math activities with an Easter focus simply by using Easter-related items in your counting or problems.
For young kids working on counting, sorting, and place value, have them count out wooden eggs or plastic bunnies. If you are talking about number lines, talk about each movement back or forth as a hop. You can even get kids out of seats to count bunny hops or hop forward and back on a number line you create on the floor.
For kids working with addition, subtraction, or other simple equations, again use Easter items:
- If Aiden found 5 Easter eggs and Amelia found 7, how many eggs did they find all together?
- Luis found 12 chicks in his Easter basket. He gave 6 away. How many chicks does he have left?
You can use Easter themes to talk about size and measurement: Which chick is taller? Which egg is biggest? And even estimating: How many bunny counters will fit in this container?
It’s not a big switch on your part, but for kids it feels more like holiday fun and less like math.
Easter spelling activities
The same switch up works for spelling. Choose Easter words to practice certain sounds or use Easter themed activities to practice the “regular” words on your spelling list.
Are you working on long e sounds? Include Easter in your list. Short i? Use chicks and lily.
Use sentences about bunnies, egg hunts, chocolate, chicks, and lambs to practice any spelling words you are working with.
If you use Tap It, Map It, Zap It to practice segmenting and spelling, have students make bunny hops for each sound instead of a tap. You can let them stand up and hop if they can still focus on the rest, or have them make a bunny hop with their fingers on the page.
More Easter math and spelling ideas
A little creativity goes a long way to keeping kids learning during holiday times. Lucky you, that doesn’t have to mean more work. I’ve created a bundle of 37 Easter-focused activities to make adding a little holiday fun to your lessons even easier. With the Easter Theme Pack, you just download, print, and you’re ready to go.
Spelling and math practice includes:
- Practice your Easter spelling
- An Easter alphabet
- ‘ch’ words
- Sentences using Easter words
- Easter chicks – tallest to shortest
- Add it up
- Take it away
You also get art and Easter writing activities for additional learning in this season!
Get your Easter Theme Pack here.
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