Egg hunts are a colorful and fun tradition during the Easter holiday, but for some Valley Forge Elementary students, the search for goodie-filled eggs was also educational.

Second-grade students in Curry Deloach and Lisa Burdick’s class took to the Valley Forge playground Wednesday afternoon in search of as many Easter eggs as they could find. The eggs were filled with sweet treats, but also with something that would challenge their young minds: math problems.

“We wanted to do something fun and educational,” Deloach said. “We wanted for the students to get outside, and exercise and have social interaction, but to work on their curriculum as well.”

The teachers, along with a few parent volunteers, scattered plastic Easter eggs around the school’s playground. Students lined up along the fence and when given the signal darted across the playground in search of the eggs.

Not long after the hunt started, the students bags and baskets were filled with eggs.

“It’s easy for me to spot the camo eggs,” Tyler Greenwell said, showing off all the camouflage eggs he had found. “It’s my favorite.”

Other egg hunters didn’t have such a focused approach.

“I knew I had to find all the eggs,” Madison Dial said. “I found a lot.”

After all the eggs were found the students gathered back on the basketball court where they were given sidewalk chalk and set to work to solve the math problems found in their eggs. The problems include simple equations, fractions, making change and word problems.

Greenwell and his friend Gabriel Lyons worked together to solve their math problems. The first one they tackled was “What is the sum of 6 and 5?”

“This is fun,” Lyons said. “I have had an egg hunt before, but never one done with math. It’ll help me learn math better.”

Kelsey Grosskoph worked on a word problem to determine which of the numbers listed would equal 18 when added together.

“It was good to do this,” she said. “I knew how to do the problem, so it was easy.”

After all the problems were solved, students were free to enjoy their candy and play on the playground.

“My candy melted, but it’s still good,” Morgan Grant said.