Activity Plan Mixed Ages: All About Eggs

"Eggciting" discoveries happen when children prepare this basic food!

• PRINT
• EMAIL

Ready-To-Use Teaching Idea: Cooking

Materials:

• cooking items including pots, frying pan with lid; spatula, wire whisk, and wooden spoon; nonstick cooking spray or oil; and eggs
• large sheet of chart or mural paper for graphing and charts
• markers
• drawing and construction paper
• glue sticks
• camera and film

Objective: Children will develop language, literacy, science, math, and observational skills as they explore how different cooking processes change eggs.

ACTIVITY

Introduction. Invite children to study different ways to cook eggs. Explain that you would like them to observe how eggs change, taste, feel, and smell depending on how they are prepared. Children will create charts, graphs, and photo documentations to record their study.

Charting: What We Know and What We Want to Learn. Ask the group to share what they know about cooking eggs and different ways they like to cat eggs. Develop a list of ways eggs can be prepared, including hard boiled, soft boiled, fried, omelet, egg salad, huevos rancheros, and egg foo young. Invite children to choose the egg preparations they would like to study.

Preparation. Gather the recipes, cooking utensils, and ingredients. Review safety rules, including keeping hands away from pans on the stove or hot plate. Create rebus charts for each egg recipe so children can follow along. Graphing. Create a horizontal or vertical graph to record children's favorite egg preparations. The graph will include columns or rows for each egg preparation. Cut out paper oval egg shapes. After children have tasted each type of egg, invite them to glue a paper shape on the graph to record the eggs they enjoyed eating.

Photo Documentation. Photograph each step of all the different egg preparations. Ask children to organize the photographs in sequence and have them write or dictate information about what is happening during each step. Use their photographs and comments to create a display documenting their study. Make photocopies of the photographs and place them in a container in the math area to use as sequence cards.

What We Have Learned. Conclude the egg study by inviting the group to share what they learned about the different ways they prepared eggs.

Curriculum Connection: FAMILY INVOLVEMENT

Egg Survey. Work with the group to develop a survey listing different ways to prepare eggs. Children can ask family members to indicate their most favorite and least favorite way to eat eggs. Develop a chart to record the information children collect, then have them summarize their findings. 

Risa Young is the former director of two early childhood programs in the New York City area, the Children's Aid Society's Greenwich Village Center and the Innovative Learning Center at the Long Island College Hospital. She has been a consultant to Early Childhood Today for more than eight years.

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