Easter Egg Sentence Hunt

I was feeling creative and wanted a new way to review a reading last week. I have also been running at about 100% capacity for about a month now and am beginning to tire out, so I wanted an activity that would feel fresh, new, and fun to the students, but give me a break in terms of my own energy output. 

My solution was to create an Easter Egg Hunt! It's a variation on matching sentences to pictures, but much more engaging.

Prep:

1. Start with a set of sentences and images that go together. I prefer to do this with a story I've already illustrated with stick figures.
2. Put the images around your room paired with a cup, envelope, or, if you are like me, a quickly-crafted paper pouch.
3. Print enough copies of the sentences that you have a full set for each group you plan to have. 
4. Color-code the sentences to go with the eggs: a blue mark on each for blue eggs, green for green eggs, and, if you are like me and have more groups than egg colors, some combos: blue and orange marks for blue-orange egg combos, etc. 
5. Put one sentence in each egg, making sure you align the colors with the colors of eggs.
6. Hide the eggs around your room! My rule: it must be visible from somewhere standing in the classroom. That doesn't mean you can't be creative, but it does prevent turning your room upside down during the egg hunt. 

Running the Activity:
Some of the eggs will be absolutely obvious. Students will be intrigued as they enter. It will be fun to wait to tell them.

1. Each group is assigned a color and hunts exclusively for that color. 
2. They put their sentences in the pouch with the correct image. There is only one correct sentence for each image.
3. I checked as they went and returned incorrect sentences to groups for them to try again.
4. Once I had the full rainbow in each pouch, I knew everyone had them all correct, and this can be taken as an easy comprehension grade (your choice!)

After completion, I asked groups to restuff their eggs and they hid them for the next class (which they asked to do--I didn't even have to ask!)

Thoughts:

• This was fun. It does have a short dead period while I'm checking sentences and in the future I think I'll fill that with Blooket or Gimkit or something like that. 
• Students were possibly even more excited to hide the eggs than they were to hunt them. I reinforced the rule that they have to be visible, but they enjoyed the challenge.