State testing…who doesn’t love it?

After the kiddos sit for hours in silence doing their absolute best on state tests (hopefully)…I like doing something fun and a little out if the ordinary with them. Last week we were gearing up for Easter and as soon as I pulled out Peeps, I had their attention.

I found really cool S.T.E.M. challenges on Teachers Pay Teachers to use with the Peeps. I decided on the Peep Rafts and the Peep Catapults. You see those Sour Watermelon Peeps? Um…hello? Amazing.

I placed the kids in partners and made them sketch out what the catapults should look like. I absolutely loved listening to what they were coming up with. They had to sketch it out and then explain to me what each part was doing and why.   

Please forgive the bare walls and rows of desks…remember we were testing so everything had to be covered or taken down. This is what team work looks like.

When the catapults were ready, they lined up behind the carpet. Some actually went quite far, while others…um…didn’t. Some of them tried to convince me that their Peep would go further if they could eat the ears…wink, wink…

What did the winners get?? Why their own pack of Peeps. I have to brag though, because they all shared with each other. The catapults turned out much better than the rafts. 😉

      

The goal was to keep their Peep on the longest without getting wet. I almost feel like everyone was holding their breath watching the Peeps. There was an actual person on “Peep Patrol”. It was their job to monitor the Peeps and let us know when they hit the water. Some were quick and others had strong rafts.

These are really cute activities to do as the end of the school year rounds down too. Make sure to grab a few boxes and save them for a rainy day. Or after testing to get the kids focused on something fun.

I had the Peeps for science, but I still wanted to get a bit of math review in. For some reason my kids can’t remember to regroup until a few problems in. This should be something that is second nature to them by now, so I came up with a reverse egg search.

Each egg had a number on it. The kids had to find an egg (they weren’t really hidden) and then come back and match it with an equation. When they found the matching equation they could put the post-it and egg in their basket. Each egg had a random point number in it. So the person with the most points won, not the person with the most eggs. This encouraged my kids to take their time and make sure they were correct in their addition and subtraction. 

The post-its were easy to pull off of the board and on to the class white board for review. 

Some students solved all of the problems and then went out searching for specific numbers and some found the numbers first and used estimation to narrow down which equations to solve. It was interesting to see their mind work and how many different ways there were to place eggs with equations. 

If they matched the egg and equation correctly, they received the points inside the egg (from 1-10), if they got the egg and equation wrong…either because they were rushing and just trying to get the most eggs, or didn’t regroup….they lost the points. Yep, I’m mean like that. 🙂 

They loved it!!! I loved that my kids that took their time and used their strategies were the ones that did the best. Look how colorful the board is…I wish it always looked like that.

I’m so glad our testing is over for the year… I hope your kiddos did great on theirs too. 🙂