Inspired by the Easter Bunny

Watching my kids hunt after Easter eggs today in my backyard, I kept thinking to myself how fun it would be to watch my students do the same thing.

*cough*nerd alert*cough*

I know, I know.

I also know that the day coming back from a break is notoriously rough, so if I could have an activity that served as a review under the guise of fun, that would be just freakin' awesome.

I also know that I have a ton of those plastic eggs laying around my house right now and if I really, really "needed" them for school on Monday, I would totally have an excuse for not putting them away.

So, here's what I am thinking for the Monday we return from break.

The Great Easter Egg Hunt Review of Awesomeness (?):

1) No groups for this activity.  This is a class vs. class competition.  3rd hour vs. 4th hour vs. 5th hour vs. 6th hour vs. 7th hour.  Winner gets cookies or candy or a cavity (or maybe some combination therein).

2) Around my room or the courtyard across from my room (weather permitting...this is Michigan after all; 3 years ago we had a snow day the first day back from break) I will hide as many of those plastic eggs as I have at my house.  Since I have Advanced Chem 1st hour, I am sure I can talk them into helping me hide the eggs for my third hour class, thereby cutting down substantially on time.

3) Inside each egg will be a slip of paper with a question pertaining to one of the following topics:

a. Stoichiometry
b. Nomenclature
c. Writing Formulas for Ionic Compounds

4) When I say "Go!" students will scatter around the room/courtyard.  When they stumble upon an egg, they will open it up.  They will peruse their notes to come up with the answer.  When they have the right answer, they will bring the egg and the question up to the front of the room.  They will tell me the answer.  If the answer is correct, the question slip will go in a beaker, the egg will go in the basket.  This will help me keep track of how many eggs are still out.

5) I will time how long it takes the class as a whole to find and solve ALL of the eggs I have hidden.  Students may use their classmates for help, or design any strategy they'd like to finish faster, so long as each student only has one egg in their possession at any one time.

6) The game ends when all eggs have been found and solved.  The class of the day with the fastest time wins.

7) When the game is over, I will have the class re-stuff and re-hide the eggs for the next class.

I imagine this taking 25-30 minutes, after I will have a better idea of what students are and are not remembering accurately and address that collectively, assigning practice problems accordingly.

I'm excited to give this a try, but do you see anything that I should watch out for as I am?  I would welcome your thoughts and suggestions to help me make this a successful activity.

And because I'm one of *those* moms, I leave you with these pictures of my super cute kids hunting Easter eggs.  You're welcome.