Created for Book Week 2026
Celebrate The Emperor's Egg by Rae Tan with this cross-curricular activity pack, designed to inspire honesty, patience and courage in early years and primary classrooms.
This resource is packed with craft, literacy and maths activities inspired by Ren's long wait for Bao Bao to hatch and the honesty that ultimately wins her the throne. Perfect for planning a whole-day Symphony of Stories experience or weaving into your Book Week celebrations!
What's included:
Book Craft
Egg puppet craft - assemble a hatching egg puppet with a cracking shell and hidden creature, in colour or black and white
Differentiated Literacy Activities
Open-ended writing prompts - 10 prompts inspired by patience, honesty and leadership, with three differentiated templates
Character traits - brainstorm and match adjectives to describe Ren, then find evidence from the story, across differentiated levels
Story retell - draw and answer questions about the beginning, middle and end of the story, then plot it onto a story mountain, across differentiated levels
Story dialogue - find quotes from the book, add missing speech marks and punctuation, and find further examples of dialogue, across differentiated levels
Diary entries - write from Ren's perspective, with an option to write three entries showing how her feelings change throughout the story
Letter to Bao Bao - write a letter to Bao Bao while waiting for him to hatch
Persuasive writing: my creature is the best! - persuade the emperor that your creature should win the throne, using the OREO structure, across differentiated levels
Differentiated Mathematics Activities
Symmetry - design a symmetrical egg, identify lines of symmetry on eggs and 2D shapes, across differentiated levels
Egg subtraction - subtraction within 10, 20 and 30, plus creating your own word problems, across differentiated levels
Skip counting and arrays - skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s, grouping, and creating arrays and multiplication sentences, across differentiated levels
Favourite creature: data - survey classmates on their favourite creature from the book, then tally and graph the results
Colour patterns - create egg patterns inspired by the Emperor's eggs, with an extension task using different designs, shapes and sizes
Measure it - measure the length of a provided egg using classroom objects, then compare longer and shorter items
Design Activities
Create a hatchling - design an original mythical hatchling, combining features from real and imagined animals, with details on its name, abilities and diet
Family coat of arms - design a coat of arms for Ren's family, representing their character traits and values
New throne - design a new throne for Ren, worthy of a new emperor
Geometric patterns - design a geometric repeating pattern inspired by the book's decorative borders
Want it all?
Grab the matching The Emperor's Egg slide deck to bring the story to life. Includes writing prompts and maths tasks (linked to the worksheets), as well as additional design prompts.
Hive Members Bonus
Enjoy exclusive artwork and themed slide backgrounds to level-up your Book Week experience!
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