Did you color hard-boiled eggs for your Easter basket? Save the shells to make colorful refrigerator magnets. Here's a kid-tested method for doing this simple project. Actually, the kid testing session turned out to be as much fun as the results.

Thanks to the Durand Elementary School's after-school program leader, Nicole Richardson, four second-graders were selected to try out the eggshell project. I brought in a half-dozen colored hard-boiled eggs, small wooden flat bases with magnet material on the back, a bottle of clear school glue, and plenty of paper towels.

I explained to the kids that you crack the shells, remove the shells from the inner egg membrane, put glue on the wooden base, and stick the small pieces of shell into the glue using any color combination.

[photo: From left, Justin Smith, Cody Richardson, Lily Moore, with Aaron Folk standing behind.]

Aaron Folk's first question was if he could crack the shells on his head. Aaron was given permission to try. Lily Moore thought the best way was to crack the egg on the table. Both methods were attempted.

Justin Smith's next question was whether he could eat the eggs. Since the blue color resulting from use of a Sharpie to color the shells had bled through to the egg white, coloring it blue, the group decided it was not worth possible illness by eating these eggs. Lucky for me, there was agreement on this.

Removing the shell from the egg membrane proved to be a bit tedious. Despite the bit of work to free up the shell, I recommended doing it because gluing the membrane down might smell over time. Cody Richardson was quite intrigued with the possibility of a smelly project and wanted to collect all the membrane material to bring home. Sorry, Mom.

[photo: from left, Aaron, Justin, and Lily work on their eggshell magnets.]

As the gluing progressed, we discussed the differences between store-bought eggs and farm fresh ones. My suggestion that these differences might be a good research project for science met with silence. The group was more interested in where this article might be put in the Neighbors paper. The merits of having their pictures easily visible on the front page were contrasted with the delight of opening the paper and finding the article inside. They were advised that it was the job of the editor to decide if the article was run at all and where it would be placed.

Lily arranged each colored piece of shell on her magnet, choosing the colors carefully. Aaron developed a smush-method which was quicker but yielded more back-of-shell white in the design. Cody and Justin tried a combination of the two methods and Justin asked if he could make a second magnet.