Clever Classroom Activities

Language Development

Silly Billies – Rhyme Time

Practice skills for rhyming, phonetic word plays, and lexical humor. Download the selected rhyming phrases for Silly Billies – Rhyme Time; Ask the student to first underline all rhyming words, and secondly to copy the phrase omitting the underlined words but leaving blanks for them. Complete the phrase by filling in the blanks with new rhyming words that are amusing while providing educational classroom activities.

Silly Billies – Noun Clowns

Practice skills for identifying nouns, phoenetic word plays, and lexical humor. Download the selected rhyming phrases for Silly Billies – Noun Clowns. Ask the student to first underline all nouns, and secondly to copy the phrase omitting the underlined words but leaving blanks for them. Complete the phrase by filling in the blanks with new nouns that amuse.

Antonym Anteaters – Practice skills for identifying antonyms

Download the advanced vocabulary list for Silly Billies – Antonym Eaters. Have kids write the opposite meaning of these words. Throw students a fun zinger by asking them to then use each antonym in a sentence that includes the word anteater or a word that rhymes with anteater. To practice opposites, students can also write sentences that include the vocabulary word from EggMania and its antonym.
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Silly Billies – Adjective Jesters

Practice skills for identifying adjectives, phonetic word plays, and lexical humor. Download the selected rhyming phrases for Silly Billies – Adjective Jesters. Ask the student to first underline all adjectives, and secondly to copy the phrase omitting the underlined words but leaving blanks for them. Complete the phrase by filling in the blanks with new adjectives that are amusing.

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Story Glory

Creative Writing Skills: Select three to five (or number of your choosing) random art pages, not in sequence, from the “Explore Art with Fun Facts” section of EggMania. Have students write their own story based upon what the illustrations inspire in their imaginations. Consider a class contest for best story with prizes (first, second and third places are recommended).

Story Glory – Creative Writing Challenge… for advanced students:

Option 1: Same concept as above with increased difficulty. First, have students view the art pages and write down at least five words that come to mind, free association style, for each page. All of these words must be used in their stories.

Option 2: Follow the first steps listed above and in Option 1. Ask students to divide their free-association words from art pages into these categories: Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. All words must be used correctly in their stories. If students list most of their words in just one of these categories, have them expand their use of the other word categories in their next writing assignment.

Option 3: Follow the instructions for Option 1, and also require students to use their free-associate words in their story and in the order they were written down.

Option 4: Teach genres of theater and books – comedy, drama, musical, historical fiction, true crime, autobiography, memoir, science fiction, etc. – by using the process outlined in Option 1 and/or 3. Require students to decide on a genre prior to writing their stories.

Option 5: Download EggMania’s advanced vocabulary list and require students to write their own short stories, cartoons, poems, or scripts for a Reality TV show that includes all of these vocabulary words.

Option 6: Download EggMania’s advanced vocabulary list and ask students to write the antonym of each vocabulary word, then write their own short stories, cartoons, poems, or scripts for a Reality TV show that includes all of EggMania’s advanced vocabulary words and their corresponding antonyms.

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Art: Design and Appreciation

Art Sleuths – Art Appreciation

Styles of two legendary artists, Vincent Van Gogh and Marc Chagall, are featured in EggMania. After showing images of these two artists’ paintings and discussing their particular paint styles, have students play art

detectives by finding the illustrations in EggMania that exhibit similar images and/or styles, listing page numbers with descriptions of the similarities for images, styles, and techniques. Advanced students can also research these artists’ most famous paintings and then match up the corresponding illustrations of EggMania.

For example, the illustration on Page 4 of EggMania has elements reminiscent of Van Gough’s “Starry Night”.

Strokes of Genius – Art History

Using Wikipedia or other sources, have students research and print information on Van Gogh and Chagall. Then write the full name of the artist across the top of a page. Find words in the research materials that describe the artist’s history, and then match those words to corresponding letters of the artist’s name.

For example, Marc Chagall: M – Modernist; A – Avant-garde; R – Russian; C – Cathedrals, for MARC and onward for his last name. Host a live chat or class discussion of how these words apply to the artist.

Spectrum Savants – Color Concepts

Young children to advanced art students will enjoy using the illustrations from EggMania to develop their skills and to better understand the artful use of color. Depending upon age group, select pages from EggMania to teach color concepts, such as the nuances of the color wheel, primary, secondary, mixing colors, gradient colors, complimentary versus analogous colors, as well as color psychology as for how color creates mood.

  • Using iPad, take screen shots of particular pages of EggMania illustrations (Fun Fact section features art only, no story text).
  • Print in black-&-white for hands-on activities such as painting or coloring with markers to teach color theory concepts
  • Use a projector or print in color for color-concept examples and discussion

Activities

Artful Architects – Principles of Design

The principles of design are: line, color, value, space, shape, form, texture, repetition, balance, emphasis, contrast, and unity. Based on age level appropriateness, show and discuss examples of these principles with the artful illustrations of EggMania. Pages in the “Explore Art with Fun Facts” section are pure illustrations with no story text.

Activities

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Science and Social Studies

Fun Fact Wizards – Gregg Kregg Challenge

Gregg Kregg challenges students to write down all the Fun Facts from EggMania that they can recall, then assign each one to a category of
statuescience or social studies. Art pages may be viewed to stimulate memory as long as the iPad’s external sound is off and Fun Facts narration cannot be heard.

Fun Fact Merlins – Gregg Kregg Challenge

Download selected Fun Facts from EggMania. Cut into strips and have students randomly draw one. Gregg Kregg challenges students to research and write a full report based upon this fact. If preferred, students may choose their own Fun Fact for report.