ESL Easter Activities, Classroom Games, Lesson Plans & Resources

If you’re looking for some of the best ESL Easter activities and games, then you’re certainly in the right place. Keep on reading for the best Easter games ESL, along with worksheets, lesson plans, vocabulary, and more. If you want to get teaching materials for other holidays, check out ESL resources for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

ESL Easter Activities

Let’s get into the best activities and games for an Easter ESL lesson.

#1: Easter Egg Hunt: Easter Games ESL

An Easter egg hunt is a fun way to celebrate this popular holiday. When the students are outside for lunch or recess, have the teachers hide some Easter eggs around the school. Once the students come back in, the hunt can begin! I generally keep some eggs in reserve for the students who are unable to find any. However, I buy cheap chocolate eggs so that there are lots to go around (at least five per student).

#2: Egg Decorating

I love to do some egg decorating with my students! There are a number of ways to do this, with varying levels of difficulty:

• The real deal! This involves making a small hole in an egg and extracting the yolk and the white. And then using wax and dyes. If you have the motivation and love arts and crafts, this can be quite a fun thing to do. Look on the Internet for directions on how to do this. However, it does require a ton of work to organize, and I’m usually not that motivated.
• Boil some eggs and have students decorate them using dyes. This involves less work, but the eggs don’t last forever.
• Print off some Easter egg colouring worksheets and have students do that. It’s a fun way to decorate the classroom if you do this a few days before Easter.

#3: Easter Charades or Pictionary

I love to use charades (acting) or Pictionary (drawing) during my holiday party lessons. Use Easter vocabulary (see the bottom of this article for a list of ideas), put students into teams and have some fun with these party games.

This activity also works well for other holidays.

#4: Odd One Out: ESL Easter Activity

#5: How Many Candies?

Put Easter-themed candies in a glass jar (chocolate eggs, Easter jelly beans, etc.) and count how many you are putting in as you do it. Seal up the jar well.

Then, let each of your students have one guess as to how many candies there are. I usually do this by giving each student a small piece of paper. They have to write their name, class and guess. Then, the person who guesses closest to the correct number gets the entire jar of candies. They can choose to share or not!

Check out more ESL guessing games.

#6: Listening Lesson: ESL Easter Activities

I love to have some dedicated listening lessons instead of just the usual speaking ones all the time. Listening is an important skill that requires some dedicated practice, and the more introverted students appreciate this as well.

Find a listening passage related to Easter. It could be someone talking about Easter traditions or their own personal experience with the holiday. From there, follow the simple steps in this listening lesson plan template, and you’ll have yourself a great class! Find out more here:

ESL Listening Lesson Planning Template.

#7: Egg Drop Contest

This is a fun way to celebrate Easter in a science kind of way! Put students into pairs or small groups and give them each an egg. Then, scavenge around the staff room, recycling boxes, etc. for a variety of materials from which students can make a device to protect their egg when dropping it off the roof or out a classroom window. Things like popsicle sticks, string, and straws work well too.

When it comes to dropping the eggs, it’s best to have two teachers or get an admin person to help you. One teacher can remain with the eggs and students dropping them (if out a classroom window) at the top, while the other one can do crowd control with the rest of the students at the bottom. If dropping them off the roof, the teacher can bring all the eggs up and do it themselves.

It’s extremely important to make sure nobody gets injured so choose a low-traffic area and set up a perimeter using some tape or pylons in which no students are allowed to enter on the ground.

Drop the eggs and then get each group to open their package to see if their egg survived.

#8: Dialogue Substitution

#9: Easter Vocabulary Memory Game

A fun way to help students remember new Easter vocabulary is to play the concentration game. One card has a picture, while the corresponding one has a vocabulary word. Students can play a matching game in small groups. Find out more about it here:

ESL Concentration Game.

#10: Vocabulary Auction Game: Easter Games ESL

This TEFL game does require a bit of preparation, but it’s definitely worth it if you can recycle the activity for more than one class. Make up some sentences with a large amount of Easter vocabulary. Then, cut out each individual word.

In teams, students have to bid on the words in an auction. Then, there’s a trading round. Finally, students try to make as many grammatically correct sentences as possible. The meaning should make sense too. The winning team is the one with the most sentences. Find out more about it here:

ESL Vocabulary Auction Game.

#11: Holiday Presentations: Easter Activities ESL

A fun activity that I like to do with my slightly higher-level classes is to have them do a group presentation about a holiday, such as Easter, Thanksgiving, Halloween, and Christmas. Students can do some research about the history behind the holiday, traditions, etc.

Then, they can make a PowerPoint with a few pictures and do a presentation to the class. It’s generally informative, fun and interesting. Here are even more ideas and tips:

ESL Presentation Ideas.

#12: A to Z Warm-Up: ESL Easter Activities

It’s often the case that students already know a good deal of Easter vocabulary before you explicitly teach them, particularly at the higher levels. Doing a quick warmer activity can help students activate their prior knowledge, which can make new vocabulary more memorable.

The way this one works is that in small groups, students can write down the alphabet on a piece of paper. Then, they can try to think of one related word that starts with each letter in a certain amount of time. For example,

A:

B: bunny

C: chocolate

D:

E: egg

F:

Etc.

#13: Easter Traditions Around the World

Have a look on YouTube for lots of great videos that talk about the different traditions that people have around the world for this holiday. It can be the basis of an interesting listening or vocab lesson.

#14: Easter Speaking Lesson Plan

It’s easier than you might think to plan a speaking or conversation lesson about almost anything, including this holiday. Have a look at this video for the steps to include:

#15: Dictogloss: Easter Activities ESL

This is one of my favourite listening-focused activities for higher-level students. Find, or write a passage of someone talking about their Easter experiences. Or, favourite things they like to do on Easter.

Put students into pairs and read it out at a faster-than-normal pace for the level of students. Students can take notes and then compare them with their partners. The goal is to recreate what they just heard. Read it again, and students repeat the procedure. Finally, they can compare what they have with the original version.

#16: Easter Vocabulary Spelling Challenge

This is a fun whiteboard game with lots of variations. For absolute beginners, say a word out loud and students have to work together in teams to spell it, letter by letter. For slightly higher levels, give hints about the word and the students race to be the first to write it down correctly.

#17: Easter-Themed ESL Running Dictation

Try out this 4-skills activity if you want to make your holiday classes at least a little bit educational:

#18: Cookie Decorating

Make or buy some cookies in classic easter shapes (eggs, bunnies, etc.), along with some different colours of icing. Have students bring some sprinkles or candies to share and get to decorating! You’ll definitely want to have a roll of paper towel on hand to prevent a sticky desk disaster.

#19: Door Decorating Contest

A nice spring activity is to have each class decorate a door in the school. Then, the admin people can judge the doors and declare a winner. The best class can get a prize of some kind (Easter candy)!

#20: Make a Crossword Puzzle

A nice way to review just about any sort of new vocabulary, including ones for this holiday is with a puzzle. You can certainly find some good ones online or you can make your own, tailored specifically to the vocabulary words that you’ve taught.

Google “Discovery.com puzzle maker” and you’ll easily find it. From there, it’ll take just a few minutes to make a fun puzzle.

Easter ESL Lessons

If you’re a teacher, then you already know how much time it can save to use a lesson plan that another teacher has created. Here are a few Easter lesson plans to check out:

ESL Kids Stuff

British Council

Lingua House

ESL Easter Worksheets

What teacher doesn’t love a good worksheet, right? Here are some of the top options for Easter-themed ones. These include the best ESL Easter activities.

ISL Collective

Boggles World

English Worksheets

ESL Easter Vocabulary

Here are some popular Easter vocabulary words to consider teaching English learners:

• April
• basket
• bunny
• chick
• chocolate
• Church
• cross
• egg
• Easter egg decorating
• Easter egg hunt
• ham
• holy week
• jelly beans
• Jesus
• lamb
• lent
• lily
• March
• rabbit
• tulip
• turkey

Did you like these ESL Easter Activities and Games?

Yes? Then you’re going to love this book you can find on Amazon: 101 ESL Activities for Teenagers and Adults. The key to better TEFL classes is a wide variety of engaging and interactive ESL games and activities, and this book will help you do that in style!

You can get the book in a variety of formats. Keep a copy on the bookshelf in your office to use as a handy reference guide when doing lesson plans. Or, take the digital version to your favourite coffee shop for some lesson planning on the go. Finally, check out the audio version on your commute to and from school.

Whatever the case, get ready for some ESL teaching awesome in your life! Check it out here:

FAQs About Easter Activities and Games ESL

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about teaching Easter to ESL students.

What is the most popular Easter activity ESL?

The most popular Easter activity for a classroom is Egg Hunt! Before students arrive, hide Easter Eggs (you can use cheap chocolate eggs). Put slips of paper with the eggs that have easy ESL activities written on them. In that way, students will have fun hunting for the Eggs while completing educational tasks!

What are words related to Easter?

Here is a list of ESL Easter vocabulary: April, basket, bunny, chick, chocolate, Church, cross, egg, Easter egg decorating, Easter egg hunt, ham, holy week, jelly beans, Jesus, lamb, lent, lily, March, rabbit, tulip, turkey.

What are the best Easter activities for ESL?

Check out the list of the best ESL Easter activities and games: Egg Hunt, Egg Decorating, Easter Charades or Pictionary, Odd One Out, How Many Candies?, Easter Vocabulary Memory Game, and A to Z Warm-up activity.

Easter Activities ESL: Join the Conversation

Do you have any go-to classroom games or activities to celebrate this happy holiday? Please leave a comment below and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you.

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Last update on 2022-06-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API