team work – HonorsGradU

Kids, especially younger ones, love hands-on activities. The movement feels like play time, and also helps build important neural pathways and connections. There are also benefits for increasing hand-eye coordination as students manipulate objects.

In the weeks leading up to Easter, I love to use plastic Easter eggs as manipulatives and learning tools. There are so many things you can do with them to make learning fun and engaging! The activities listed below are mostly geared toward preschool or kindergarten aged kiddos, but I’m sure older kids would enjoy them as well.

Put rice or beans into eggs to make music shakers. Be sure to tape the eggs closed so you don’t end up with rice or beans all over your classroom!
Add eggs to a sensory bin for students to find.
Use eggs as a measuring tool– how many eggs tall is each student? How many eggs wide is their desk? How many eggs would it take to measure from one side of the classroom to the other? *For older kids, you could then have them measure the egg then calculate the actual distance.
Have students do a color sort with the eggs. Make it more challenging by hiding eggs around the room for them to find first.
Hide eggs around the room. Divide the students into small groups and assign each group a color. Whichever team finds all of their eggs first wins the game.
Make a chart with each upper case letter of the alphabet on it. Then, write each lower case letter of the alphabet on small pieces of paper. Put the papers in the eggs, hide the eggs, and have students find them. As they find each egg, they must match it to the correct upper case letter.
Inside each egg, put a piece of paper containing whatever it is they are working on learning– simple math equations, sight words, spelling words, trivia questions, etc. Hide the eggs around the room or in a sensory bin.
Put students in small teams. Give each team a container of egg halves. Set a timer and see which team can make the tallest tower from their egg halves in the time given.
Students can use eggs to form letters or sight words.
Print off two sets of identical Easter egg pictures. Cut them out and have students play memory. You can also hide one set around the room and have them find each egg and find the match in the other set. (see photo below)
Using the printed eggs, write a math equation, sight word, spelling word, etc. Students can pick an egg and complete the task on the egg.
Easter egg mix & match– Print the downloadable file below, then color each egg one color on top, and a second color on the bottom. Give students the cards and a container of egg halves. They can make eggs to match each card. (see photos below)

These activities would be so much fun for younger grades– give them a try with your students and let us know how they go! Parents of young children, these would be fun for you to try at home, too!

Students can make eggs to match each card

Easter Egg Mix & Match Download

Schools are an excellent place for teaching important (some crucial), measurable skills like reading, math, science, other technical skills, and so on. These kinds of skills are called hard skills, and are pretty easy to track progress in— there are clear, definitive answers and methods to how these skills are learned and carried out. Other learned skills, however, don’t have answers and methods that are quite so cut and dry. These are referred to as soft skills— behavioral traits like leadership, time management, communication skills, critical thinking, and problem solving, among others.

Should schools be responsible for teaching both kinds of skills? I think they already partially are. I believe that when you teach hard skills, the soft skills sometimes just naturally work their way into the teaching and learning. For example, if you are teaching a science concept, and students are put into groups to do an experiment, they will naturally be forced to use problem solving, team work, communication, and other soft skills.

Soft skills are equally as important (if not more so in some situations) as hard skills are. In fact, many employers today tend to favor soft skill knowledge over hard skill knowledge. In a digital world where people are spending less time interacting face to face, employers today need people who can take responsibility, lead a team, communicate, and effectively solve problems.

If employers are favoring soft skills over hard skills, then how do we as teachers ensure that we are providing opportunities for our students to learn these important soft skills that will aid them as they grow, progress, and eventually enter the adult world? Like was mentioned before, a lot of it stems from things that are already happening in our classrooms. So many of the activities and projects we ask students to take part in naturally lend themselves to teaching these crucial soft skills. Group work encourages communication and leadership. Reports and presentations give students a chance to practice leadership and communication skills. Word problems and other kinds of problems allow students to use critical thinking skills. Larger projects provide excellent lessons and chances to learn time management and organization skills.

Soft skills can even be learned outside of the classroom, in places like home, church, or while doing a sport. Sports provide many valuable opportunities for soft skill attainment, and can teach those skills in ways unlike anything else. Parents can encourage their children to learn and practice soft skills within the walls of their homes by providing children with opportunities to lead family meetings, do chores, work as a team with siblings, or manage and balance their activities and time. Church groups can also provide great opportunities for kids to learn communication skills, leadership skills, and empathy.

While some children are seemingly born with natural soft skills, others need to be taught. As adults, we ought to do our best to encourage and teach the youth of today these soft skills that will greatly aid them in the coming years. Our future selves will thank us later.