How to bring Easter into your lessons
Integrating the theme of Easter into your lessons!
Dear NQT
Easter is such a fun time of the year in school and provides such an exciting opportunity to integrate this theme into all of your lessons.
So much so, the ideas may seem endless and can be overwhelming.
You may also find it difficult to integrate Easter into all of your subjects, so I have put together some ideas for almost all subjects in the curriculum to give you some help for this week!
English
There are so many amazing and fun things you can do for Easter in Literacy.
A gorgeous early finisher or writing activity during stations might be this amazing idea from A Thinker’s Toolbox.
For Procedural writing why not get your aprons on and get baking some nice Easter treats but incorporate procedural writing into it!?
I think these no-bake Rice-Krispie Easter nests look delicious!
For Read-Alouds I have compiled a list of my favourite picture books here.
Irish
Apart from the lessons incorporated into your programme book, there are lots of fun ideas to incorporate Gaeilge into Easter week in school.
With the infant classes you could read them the gorgeous story “An Tusa Mo Mhamaí?”. This is a gorgeous picture book about a little chick who is looking for their mammy after they are born.
Another gorgeous read-aloud I have come across is ‘Bran agus an Cháisc’ le Eric Hill!
Teach the children some of the key words and phrases from the books first, and have them practice them together. Then read the book aloud or play it and have the children get involved by saying some phrases that come up, or by making puppets with, or for, them so they can act it out with the story.
The pupils could also make some gorgeous Easter cards as Gaeilge, with no template, or using a template like this.
This is a lovely poem that could be taught to any class to practice their fluency in Irish!
Why not make some rabbit puppets and have the class narrate the poem until the rabbit speaks, and the puppet speaks instead on its own!?
There are so many fun lessons you could have with this poem!
I have attached a link to the poem here.
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Maths
One thing I always do on the last day before the Easter holidays is have an Easter themed maths trail!
They are so fun but also incorporate all the strands and strand units you have covered with the children throughout the year so are excellent for revision!
To put the trail together, as the teacher you would have to first consider the topics you have covered all year, making a list to ensure to have at least one question from each topic or strand unit you have covered, then walk around the classroom and school grounds and compile your questions taking the school environment into account for your maths trail.
At the end, have a box of Easter mini-eggs or goodies for the children!
For Length why not get hopping like the Easter Bunny and estimate how many hops it will take to travel the distance of the sports field, school hall, classroom, corridor!?
For the older students, they could then check the distance between the different counties or countries and calculate how many hops it will take the Easter Bunny to get from A to B!
For numbers I love this super idea from rundesroom.com that can be adapted for all ages, from counting and counting in 10s in infants to skip counting in the middle and senior classes.
Geography
While it has no direct links with Easter itself, a lesson for the older classes may be to research Easter Island and look up some facts about it, perhaps researching how it got its name, as well as the different things on the island including these moai statues.
Younger children could look at the climate on the island and design clothes for the Easter bunny for this climate, suggesting this is where he lives all year long! They could look at some foods that he might eat here and what he might do all day! They could also compare and contrast this island to an island off the coast of Ireland like Achill Island.
Another idea is to research how Easter is celebrated all over the world and compare and contrast the different celebrations and traditions.
Science
A lesson that is always a hit at Easter with younger classes is to look at the lifecycle of the chicken.
However, for a little more fun, this Easter egg catapult might be just what the pupils are looking for this week!
There is also a checklist of exciting and fun experiments on Science Sparks that will definitely get the pupils really excited to complete this week!
History
In the younger classes, the children could learn all about the Easter story, and why we celebrate Easter.
For the senior classes, the pupils could look back at our history in Ireland and do some research about the Easter Rising, making a drama based on it or creating projects for homework or in groups! Check out this list of useful PowerPoints and websites on Scoilnet here.
Music
Easter Rhythms!
Try clapping or playing some Easter rhythms with your class, then play this fun Easter Rhythm game afterwards!
In the younger classes, the pupils could do a Listening and Responding task as they listen to a song about Easter and draw a picture as to what they visualise is happening as they listen to the words of the song!
PE
One of the most exciting PE strands to cover for Easter is orienteering by setting up an Easter Egg or challenge hunt for the pupils!
You could also get your dancing shoes on and get grooving to this Easter Boom Chicka-Boom song or the Easter Bunny Dance song!
Check out some more PE ideas on Twinkl here.
Art
There are so many amazing art ideas out there for Easter, it is so difficult to narrow it down so i’m going to leave a few of my favourites below!
The links are attached to the images.
I hope this has given you all some help for planning your Easter themed lessons this week. I was so excited putting these ideas together and cannot wait to get into school this week to try some of them out myself!
All there will be left to do is to watch Peter Rabbit and eat all the chocolate!
Happy Easter everybody and enjoy the break!
Talk soon,
Nadine
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