Don't You Just Love Rattlesnake Eggs????

I don't know about you, but I am NOT a fan of snakes or snake eggs! I don't even like to look at pictures of snakes. 

At this point, you may be wondering why, if I don't like snakes, I am writing this blog. It all started as a simple prank. My husband and I were traveling to South Carolina from Maine. Maybe it was all of those hours of riding in the car. I'm really not sure, but by the time we stopped at a souvenir shop and found envelopes of rattlesnake eggs I knew I needed to bring them home to my kiddos. 

Have you seen these before? They are so much fun!! You give them to someone and tell them to open them but to be very careful. Of course, when they go to open them they make a noise and vibration. This is what is inside

All you do is twist the elastic many times until it is very tight. Carefully slip it inside and close the envelope. Now it is all set to share with someone else. 

Well, once I had my rattlesnake eggs I couldn't wait to share them with my first grade kiddos. I decided I would individually share them so each one would have a surprise. They were so cute and their responses were so much fun! I videotaped their responses and my daughter put them together into one video. I showed it to my kiddos and they loved it!

 

Of course, they were very intrigued and wanted to figure out how it all worked. Even more than that, they wanted to do the prank to someone else! 

Well....the next morning they all came back to school chatting about who they had tricked and how scared they were and I immediately saw a fantastic writing opportunity. I quickly settled them down and told them to write who they had shared their rattlesnake eggs with and how they reacted. After they got their initial thoughts on paper I gave them a paper that looked like this:

Once everyone finished, each one shared what they had written. This is a writing activity that I will be doing again along with a few extra activities. Do you ever do an activity and then afterwards think about ways you could do it better? Well, that's what happened with this activity. Next time, I will show them the eggs and then have them write about what they think will happen if they open the envelope and then follow that up with what happened. Then they will draw a picture of themselves with what they looked like when they opened it. Fun right??

Next they will answer the essential question: How does it work? I think they will enjoy checking out their envelopes and figuring out the mechanics of it along with realizing that there is the fear factor too. We set people up to be scared saying there are rattlesnake eggs in the envelope.

I have also included a page that shows how to make your own rattlesnake eggs in 6 easy steps with materials you can find around the house. Perfect for a 6-7 year old. 

I've also added a rattlesnake report using nonfiction text features such as table of contents, heading, maps, captions, comparisons, and a diagram. I think they will be excited to write the report because they are invested in the topic.

I DO NOT like snakes but I LOVED doing these writing activities with my kiddos.They loved it and it showed. If you would like to purchase a copy just click on the picture below. This week I'm linking up with Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations for Markdown Monday's Linky Party. That means I'm marking my Rattlesnake Packet down from August 10th-14th. Get it while it's on sale.

Hop on over to their blog by clicking the picture below and check out all the other deals.