Background information

Author: Stavrakaki Vasiliki

School/Organization: Kindergarten of Livadia

Abstract 

The present learning scenario was applied in a kindergarten class, to children aged 4-6 years, as part of the activities for the children to get to know our customs and traditions regarding Easter, but also to get in touch with the customs of other countries. The painting of Easter eggs is a custom that is observed throughout Greece and impresses young children, as does their scrambling, and we usually reenact it during the Easter period in kindergartens, so that the children can get to know it experientially. I chose to implement this learning scenario in my classroom because it has interesting activities, related to the custom of dyeing eggs at Easter and the children approach the knowledge actively. The activities suggested suit both the age of the children in my class and their intellectual and learning levels.            

INTRODUCTION TO THE THEME

First, we observed and described pictures of Easter customs in plenary. The children talked about their personal experiences and what customs they follow in their family. We discussed in particular the custom of red eggs, what their dyeing and scrabling symbolizes at Easter and ways in which housewives dyed them in the past and today. To learn more about this topic, we watched the two videos suggested in the initial learning script, about the history of the custom and about the countries where people follow it  (Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J31FIaqRrqg  ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiwzYdQjEsg). After watching the videos, the children commented on what they saw and described their own experiences of dyeing eggs at home or of the Easter celebration, where the whole family got together to scramble eggs and the winners of this “custom game” .

ACQUIRING NEW KNOWLEDGE AND INSPIRATION

After the children reported their experiences, it was time to show pictures from Europeana of painted and decorated eggs

https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2021009/_6D62919F92263667E1E2BCDE136A273C

https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2021009/_2114ACC812D7743269ACE32C088BBCC4

https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2021009/_68F5ACC9A2AD75111CAE4FC2906AF26E as well as various videos on YouTube, where they presented the most common, but also other special, ecological and modern ways of dyeing eggs (e.g. dyeing eggs with various vegetables, pastry colors, etc.). The children expressed their opinion about the method they liked the most and told their classmates how they would like to dye their eggs.

APPLICATION OF THE NEW KNOWLEDGE

The children had already brought two hard-boiled eggs from home. After seeing many different ways to paint and decorate the eggs and getting a lot of inspiration, the children suggested which of these ways they wanted to paint and decorate their eggs. All the children wanted to dye the traditional red eggs, as the custom dictates. So first we painted red eggs with all the children in the class. Then, the children were divided into groups based on the way they chose to paint and decorate their second egg, so in our class the following four groups were created: the group that painted its eggs with paper towels and markers, the group that painted with shaving foam and pastry colours, the group who decorated their egg with Easter napkins using the decoupage technique and the group who painted their eggs with brushes. The children worked with great enthusiasm but also with care, in order not to have accidents because our canvas was made of fragile material (painting eggs, decoupage, eggs with colours, eggs)

PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS

  After we painted and decorated our eggs we left them to dry and the next day each child presented their unique egg to the plenary and explained how they worked to achieve this result. During the presentation, the kindergarten teacher recorded each child talking about how they worked and compiled the pictures of the children with the eggs and the recordings into a presentation, which distributed to the parents to see the result of the children’s work.

 IN CONCLUSION

The children enjoyed the process of painting and decorating the eggs and experientially gained knowledge. In the above activities, reference to the traditions and customs of our country was combined with visual art and the result was very beautiful. The students, in addition to the knowledge they acquired, gathered, created, collaborated, presented and specially approached an Easter custom, thanks to the material of the Europeana platform.

For us teachers, this learning scenario suggests an original way of teaching the specific subject, making us feel more creative and inspired by the Europeana material.

Link to the learning scenario implemented: Easter is here! Let’s decorate some eggs! (EN-CUR-649) – Teaching With Europeana (eun.org)

Do you want to discover more stories of implementation? Click here.

PDM 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Bohuslän Museum.