Materials: one egg for each student/team (they can give you stotinki for this), one ziploc bag for each egg (Very important! Get these sent from home if you want to do this!) packing materials like old newspapers, towels, plastic grocery bags, scotch tape, etc.
Description: First of all, don’t panic. Letting students drop eggs out a window does not have to be as chaotic as it sounds. But it can be a lot of fun, and as long as you do the whole thing in English, they won’t even know they’re learning anything.
First, tell them about the egg drop months in advance. Use this as a motivation tool. Tell them things like “Oh, I hope we do good on this test so that we can drop eggs out the window.” Don’t elaborate on this statement until much closer to the actual event. It peaks their curiosity, and gets them excited for this mysterious “egg dropping thing.” They’ll also probably think you’re crazy, but that’s ok.
About two weeks before the egg drop, tell the class what you’ll be doing. The objective is to package your egg and protect it in such a way, that when you drop it out the window, it doesn’t break. It’s your choice if they are going to work in teams or individually. As a class, brainstorm different things you can use to protect your egg, such as newspapers, pillows, or whatever. Encourage them to think creatively – I’ve had students use baba slippers! They can also think of other ways to help their egg land safely, such as parachutes. Help students with any words they don’t know the English for. Tell each student/group that they have one week to write a short plan to protect their egg, (in English!) and it must get approved by you if they are going to participate.
After you have checked their plans, remind them of the egg drop day that they will have to bring their materials in (in fact, remind them several times, and explain that their eggs are going out the window, protected or not). Collect money for the eggs if you like. On the day of the egg drop, bring the eggs, extra tape and scissors, and the ziploc bags. If your room is on the first floor, see if you can borrow a room on the 2nd or 3rd floor for the hour.
Here’s why you need the ziploc bags: before you give students the eggs to wrap up in whatever they’ve brought, put each egg in a ziploc baggie and tape it shut first. This way, when eggs break, they won’t make a mess all over the pillows/towels/whatevers, or make a mess on your school’s sidewalk. If you can’t get ziploc baggies, think of some other way to contain the egg mess, or I would not advise doing this activity!!!
Anyway, the rest is simple – students have a time limit to package their eggs, and then they go outside under the window and you drop them. (Then they’re no accusations of students “throwing” another team’s egg.) As soon as eggs land, they can start unwrapping them to see whose survived. Then students clean up the sidewalk (send a garbage bag down with them if you like) and come back upstairs to write their final report, which they turn in for a grade. They’ll ask you to grade them on whether their egg broke or not, but maybe just give out bonus points for eggs that survived instead of bad marks for eggs that broke.
-Abeth S.
Filed under: Level: Advanced, Skills: Creativity, Skills: Writing | 1 Comment »