Spring Activities for Testing Season: Easter, Earth Day and the Weeks Between

The best spring math and reading activities for April are the ones that work on a testing day. Not during the test. Around it. Most state testing windows open in April, and a testing week has a shape every teacher knows: a session that eats the morning, a class that comes out of it flat, a schedule that puts your reading block at 1:40 for three days, and a Friday when the room needs to do something real but nobody has the energy for a new lesson.

The usual answer is a movie or a packet. A better one is a case. A spring Mystery Detective page is sixteen problems on a standard the class already knows, it finishes in one sitting, it checks itself, and the story about missing garden seeds gives a tired room a reason to get to the end. The Earth Day reading mysteries do the same for the ELA block, with the added benefit that Earth Day is a real topic with real nonfiction behind it, which is more than can be said for most of the spring.

What should students do on the days around state testing?

Practice that is on standard but off pressure. Three rules:

• Nothing new. The morning before a math session is not the time to introduce anything. A page on a skill the class has had since the fall warms them up without a chance of a wobble.
• Short and finishable. After a session, attention is gone. A one-page case that closes in twenty-five minutes gives the afternoon a shape. A forty-minute lesson does not survive it.
• Self-checking, because you are not there. On a testing week you are proctoring, pulling small groups, or covering for someone. A task that tells the student when an answer is wrong does the part of your job you cannot do from the hallway.

The mystery format does the checking. Students solve each problem, then match the answer to a suspect's number. Each correct answer eliminates exactly one suspect. A wrong answer either matches nobody or crosses off the wrong person, and the case won't close. The student rechecks before the page reaches your pile, and the pile is small enough to look at on a testing week.

A testing-week plan, plus Earth Day

In a year like 2027, when Easter is March 28, the Easter pieces move to the last week of March and the rest of this plan stands as written. In a year when Easter is mid-April, the Easter and testing pieces overlap, which is fine: the Easter cases are the same standards in a different setting.

Spring and Easter math cases, and the standard under each one

The Missing Flowers (addition and subtraction with regrouping, Grades 2–5, 2.NBT.B.7, 3.NBT.A.2). The spring CSI case with no holiday on it, so it runs any week from March to May. Five clue pages, color and black and white, answer key included. This is the case for the non-testing days of a testing week in a third grade room.

The Easter Egg Hunt (addition, subtraction and skip counting, Grades 2–5, 2.NBT.B.7, 3.NBT.A.2). Most of the eggs vanished before the hunt started, and somebody knew exactly where they were. The same standards as The Missing Flowers with an Easter story, for the week before the break.

The Missing Easter Eggs (multiplication and division facts to 12 × 12, Grades 3–6, 3.OA.C.7). For the grades that need facts rather than regrouping before the test. Facts and short word problems through five clue pages.

The one-page cases. The spring and Easter Mystery Detective packs are the twenty-minute pages for the mornings before a session. Pick the skill a level below where your class is now: 2-Digit Addition with Regrouping (spring, Grades 1–2, 2.NBT.B.5), 2-Digit Addition (Easter, Grades 1–3), 3-Digit Addition with Regrouping (spring, Grades 2–4, 2.NBT.B.7, 3.NBT.A.2), 3-Digit Addition (Easter, Grades 2–3), 4-Digit Addition with Regrouping (Easter, Grades 3–5, 4.NBT.B.4), and for the upper grades Order of Operations (spring, Grades 5–8, 5.OA.A.1) and Solving One-Step Equations (Easter, Grades 6–7, 6.EE.B.7).

Earth Day activities, April 22

Earth Day is the one date in the spring with real nonfiction attached to it, and it lands in the middle of most testing windows, which makes it a good day to teach something rather than review something. In 2027 it is a Thursday.

Start in the reading block. Water Pollution and Water Quality (nonfiction, Grades 3–6, RI.3.1, RI.4.1, RI.4.3) is a passage about keeping water clean, with the source of the pollution to track down. Composting and Planet Earth (nonfiction, Grades 3–6) cover the same week for a class that wants two or three days of Earth science reading. Each has multiple-choice and written-response questions, sample answers, a word search and extension tasks, and each answer rules out a suspect, so the evidence has to come from the passage.

Then the math block. The Missing Recycling Bin (addition and subtraction with regrouping, Grades 2–5, 2.NBT.B.7, 3.NBT.A.2) and The Eco-Villain (multiplication and division facts, Grades 3–6, 3.OA.C.7) are the two Earth Day CSI cases, one for each half of the elementary building.

For the younger grades and the after-session afternoons, the Earth Day digital color-by-numbers run from a link and reveal a springtime picture square by square: Number After to 100 (K–2, 1.NBT.A.1, K.CC.A.2), CVC Words (K–1), Addition Within 100 (Grades 1–3, 2.NBT.B.5), Measuring with a Ruler (Grades 2–4, 2.MD.A.1) and Order of Operations (Grades 4–7, 5.OA.A.1). For middle school, Human Impact on the Environment (Grades 5–8) is a full digital escape room on Earth science.

Spring reading lessons for the testing weeks

The reading block needs to keep going through testing, and it needs to keep going on text evidence, because that is the habit the test is checking. Two fiction reading mysteries carry April: The Missing Garden Seeds (spring, Grades 3–6, RL.3.1, RL.3.2, RL.3.3) and The Missing Easter Egg (Easter, Grades 3–6). Each is a seasonal story with a case in it, multiple-choice and written-response questions, sample answers, a word search and extension tasks. The written responses are a good low-stakes writing task for a week when the writing test is done.

For the ELA skills that show up on every state reading test, Making Inferences (Grades 3–6) and Figurative Language (Grades 3–6) are Easter digital escape rooms that run from a link.

The after-session drawer

The afternoon after a test session wants something on a screen that checks itself. The Easter Digital Escape Rooms and the Easter color-by-numbers open from a link, with no logins and nothing to grade.

• K–1: Counting Within 10 and Counting Within 20 (K.CC.A.1, K.CC.B.5), CVC Words and R-Controlled Vowels (Grades 1–2).
• Grades 1–3: Addition and Subtraction Within 100 (escape room, 2.NBT.B.5), Adding and Subtracting Multiples of 10 (1.NBT.C.4, 1.NBT.C.6) and Map Skills: Coordinates on a Grid.
• Grades 4–8: Order of Operations (5.OA.A.1) and One-Step Equations (6.EE.B.7).

Spring activities by grade

K–2. The Easter and Earth Day color-by-numbers on counting, number after and CVC words, and 2-Digit Addition with Regrouping on paper.

Grades 2–5. The Missing Flowers or The Easter Egg Hunt for the non-testing days, 3-Digit Addition with Regrouping for the mornings before a session, and The Missing Recycling Bin on April 22.

Grades 3–6. The Missing Easter Eggs and The Eco-Villain for facts, the three Earth science reading mysteries in the ELA block, and Making Inferences for the afternoon after the reading test.

Grades 5–8. Order of Operations and One-Step Equations on paper, the digital rooms on both, and Human Impact on the Environment for Earth Day.

Everything spring. All the spring, Easter and Earth Day packs, printable and digital, are in Spring, Easter and Earth Day Activities.

FAQ

How long does a spring math mystery take? A one-page Mystery Detective case fits one class period, or twenty minutes for a class that knows the format. The full CSI packs, like The Missing Flowers, have five clue pages and are built as a week.

Is there any prep? Print and go. No cutting, laminating, apps or student logins, and every pack includes the answer key. The digital escape rooms and color-by-numbers open from a link.

Can students do these on a testing day? Yes, that is what they are for: the morning before a session as a warm-up on a known skill, or the afternoon after one as a quiet task that checks itself. Nothing in them is new material.

What if Easter is in March this year? It is in 2027, on March 28. Run the Easter cases in the last week of March and use the spring and Earth Day cases through April. The standards are the same.

Is there anything for a class that doesn't do Easter? The spring cases (The Missing Flowers, The Missing Garden Seeds, the spring Mystery Detective packs) have no holiday on them, and the Earth Day cases are science. Between them they cover K to 8 without an egg in sight.

Read next

• St. Patrick's Day Activities, and the March Review Before Testing
• End of Year Activities After Testing: A Plan for the Last Four Weeks
• What Is a Science Mystery? A Teacher's Guide for Grades 3–8
• Digital Escape Rooms: A Teacher's First-Timer Guide

Written by Stuart at Kiwiland

20+ years teaching, every grade, including years as a teaching principal in small rural schools.