Someone asked me recently:
Have you got anything on Easter eggs by any chance?
I didn’t have anything planned, but straight away it reminded me that there are two different kinds of Easter Eggs. How could I resist the chance to talk about an idea to use movies in the classroom?
There are Easter Eggs that are very colorful and made of chocolate, and then there are Easter Eggs that are images or secrets within films.
Both of which can be used for an Easter egg scavenger hunt.
The advantage of using movie Easter eggs is that they allow you use a broader selection of target language. While you may focus on prepositions of location with the traditional Easter Egg hunt, you can also bring in descriptions of physical appearance, symbolism and time expressions as two things can be happening at the same time if you use Easter eggs found in movies.
I have written this post in three parts.
Part 1: The Traditional Easter Egg Hunt
Part 2: The Movie Easter Egg Hunt
If you are only interested in the movie Easter egg hunt, please scroll down to Part 2.
Part 3: Additional resources
This section has links to other resources about scavenger hunts.
Part 1: The Traditional Easter Egg Hunt
1. Make the Easter eggs
Click on Easter Egg Templates to download the word document.
The template is a single A4 page document divided into four sections. Each section has a blank oval or Easter egg shape waiting to be designed and colored in by your students.
Ask your students to complete their Easter egg before the day of the scavenger hunt. You could do it in the previous lesson as a way to introduce the scavenger hunt and build up some anticipation or you could set it as a homework.
Alternatively, do a Google image search of Easter eggs and find a design or Easter symbol that you like. Print off one copy and photocopy it as many times as you need and hide the images before the scavenger hunt.
When you have collected all the Easter eggs, write a secret word or secret sentence on the back of them. You could even write facts about Easter.
2. Write your clues
Download the Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt worksheet and write your own clues.
Clues of Location
In a classroom where you have a small space your clues will focus more on below, on top of, between, in front of and behind to refer to less obvious parts of the classroom.
The first Easter egg is between the whiteboard and the ceiling.
With a larger space, such as using a building or the whole school, you might want to use clues of location.
You can find it on the notice board next to Room 113 on the 3rd floor.
You can find it on the left-hand side of the whiteboard.
When the students arrive at the location, they will look for an Easter egg and write down the word or sentence that is on the back of the egg. This is a way of checking to see if they have been at all the locations.
3. Hide the Easter eggs
You’ll will need time to write a secret word or sentence on the back of the Easter eggs and hide them before the scavenger hunt begins. This can be done more easily in the classroom. If you are hiding them over a larger area, give yourself more time to hide them.
Make sure you keep a list of all the places where you have hidden the Easter eggs.
Note: Make sure the students know not to move the Easter eggs before you start the activity and that no unknown person moves your Easter eggs by mistake.
4. Scavenger Hunt
Introduce the scavenger hunt by saying that you have hidden Easter eggs throughout the classroom or school.
Handout your worksheet that has the clues and model the activity with an easy first question.
Tell the students that they are allowed to ask for help.
Asking other students has the benefits, but students may use their L1 rather than use English. The other risk is that students may be given the answer rather than negotiate the meaning from the English on the worksheet.
Asking the teacher for help allows the student to try and gain more information from the teacher with questions, such as:
Can you help me with Number 1?
When running a scavenger hunt activity, think about how you want your students to ask for assistance. You want to maximize student participation and minimize the chance of students not participating because they are not sure what to do or they think the clues are too hard.
If your students are leaving the classroom, tell the students how much time they have and when they are expected back.
Allow your students time to find the answers to your clues and find the secret words or sentences and award points or prizes at the end.
You also have the chance to review the words or sentences that you wrote on the back of the Easter eggs and discuss them before giving feedback to the class.
Part 2: The Movie Easter Egg Hunt
Easter eggs are not a new thing, they have be around for a long time. I was probably first aware of them because of George Lucas. When I was a lot younger than I am now, I remember seeing a Star Wars reference in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In one of the opening shots there was a club called Club Obi Wan. Directors have also been making cameo appearances in their films for a long time.
A cameo appearance is a when a well-known person appears in a film or TV show for a few seconds.
Alfred Hitchcock is said to have made 39 cameo appearances in his movies.
This gallery of Pixar Easter Eggs compiled by Sky.com has plenty of images that illustrate how Easter eggs have been used in movies.
If you teach teenagers or young adults who might feel that they are too old for a traditional Easter egg hunt, you can still have a scavenger hunt but just use a different type of Easter egg.
Tell your students that you have hidden secret images from their favorite movies around the classroom and that they have to solve clues to find them.
1. Choose a your images
Choose a selection of images, symbols, words and characters related to a movie or a series of movies and print them out.
Disney Movies, Marvel Movies related to the Avengers, the Harry Potter Movies, Star Wars, or characters from Studio Ghibli or other popular animations would all work well. In fact any movies that have enough characters and images for you to use.
What you decide to use will depend on the students you teach and the country you are teaching in.
The length of the scavenger hunt depends on the amount of pictures you have and the space you have available.
If you are doing the hunt within the classroom, you may want more images. If you are doing the hunt throughout the school, you may want less images.
When you have collected all your images, write a secret word or secret sentence on the back of them. You could even write facts about the movie.
2. Write your clues
Download the Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt worksheet and write your own clues.
There are two types of clues you can write. A clue to identify the object, or a clue to locate the object.
Clues of Identity
It can be difficult to hide things in a small classroom, so this is where clues of identity are useful. For example:
What did Snow White eat? (Answer: An apple)
Who decided that Harry should go into Gryffindor house? (Answer: The Sorting Hat)
When the students solve the clue, they have to write down where they found the image.
Clues of Location
With a larger space or using a building or the whole school, you might want to use clues of location.
You can find it on the notice board next to Room 113 on the 3rd floor.
You can find it on the left-hand side of the whiteboard.
When the students arrive at the location, they have to write down what the image is.
Clues of Location and Identity
Use clues of identity and location if you want the students to retrieve a new piece of information. For example a word written on the back of the image.
Student A has the clue:
Who decided that Harry should go into Gryffindor house? (Answer: The Sorting Hat)
Student B has the clue:
You can find it on the notice board next to Room 113 on the 3rd floor.
Student A and Student B work as a pair to find the Easter egg. When they find the image on the 3rd floor, they look on the back of that image to see a secret word, which is part of a secret sentence.
3. Hide your images
You’ll will need time to hide your images before the scavenger hunt begins.
Keep a list of all the places and what you have hidden there.
Note: Make sure the students know not to move the images before you start the activity and that no unknown person moves your images by mistake.
4. Show an example
Your students may not be familiar with what Easter eggs are. Show them examples rather than trying to explain it, that way the students can see for themselves what Easter eggs are.
This video produced by Movie House looks at some of the Easter Eggs in the animated film Tangled, which is about the story of Rapunzel.
This video produced by Movie House looks at some of the Easter Eggs in the animated film Up, which is a story of adventure and exploration.
5. Scavenger Hunt
Introduce the scavenger hunt by saying that you have hidden movie Easter eggs throughout the classroom or school.
Handout your worksheet that has the clues and model the activity with an easy first question.
Tell the students that they are allowed to ask for help.
Asking other students has the benefits, but students may use their L1 rather than use English. The other risk is that students may be given the answer rather than negotiate the meaning from the English on the worksheet.
Asking the teacher for help allows the student to try and gain more information from the teacher with questions, such as:
Can I have another clue, please?
When running a scavenger hunt activity, think about how you want your students to ask for assistance. You want to maximize student participation and minimize the chance of students not participating because they are not sure what to do or they think the clues are too hard.
If your students are leaving the classroom, tell the students how much time they have and when they are expected back.
Allow your students time to find the answers to your clues, find the movie images and write down the movies facts or secret words. Award points or prizes at the end.
If you have written hidden messages on the backs of the images, you have chance to review information, discuss it and give feedback.
Part 3: Additional Resources
Information about scavenger hunts from EnglishCurrent.com
Finders Keepers! from Tesol Blog.
Scavenger Hunt from Dave’s ESL Cafe
A selection of Scavenger Hunt worksheets from ESLprintables.com
Leave a comment below if you have any ideas, suggestions or comments about scavenger hunts.
Alternatively you can send me a message on my Facebook page or on Twitter.
Take care!
The featured Image made using a photo taken from http://flickr.com/eltpics by @CsillaBenn, used under a CC Attribution Non-Commercial license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/
I have not yet had the opportunity to organize or be involved in an Easter egg scavenger hunt. This post just represents some ideas and general resources. I am keen to try out the movie Easter egg scavenger hunt because I feel that could be used at any time of the year. For the scavenger hunts that I have been involved in, a note of appreciation goes to the teacher that organized them.
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