Implementation of “Easter is here! Let’s decorate some eggs”(SOI-MT-383)

Author: Brendan Buttigieg, Art Teacher

School/Organization: St Paul’s Bay Primary School, Malta

During Easter time I always try to conduct lessons related to the period that we will be in, and I did the same this year. I chose the learning scenario: ‘Easter is here! Let’s decorate some eggs’ to be implemented with my students as from my experience as an Art teacher, I feel that sometimes they find it a bit hard to be imaginative, thus they would need a boost in their creativity being showing them some images or works of other artists from the history of Art. It’s always a good way to introduce the students by showing them some art works to be inspired from them. The students observed several decorated eggs from Europeana and the main basic elements of Art namely line, shape, colour, pattern, and space. The students discussed the basic elements that they noticed in the decorated Easter eggs, in English and in Maltese and they executed their Easter Egg decorations using different designs and patterns. The students expressed themselves creatively by using pencil colours or watercolours and presented their final works to each other.

The Context of the Implementation of this Learning Scenario 

I am an Art teacher in a multicultural state Primary school in Malta and I teach students between the ages of 5-11 years, in our school Art room. I implemented this learning scenario with students in the age range of 9 and 10 years with a group of 20 participants, that is a whole class. The students have an Art lesson weekly, so they are familiar with Art, Art history, Art periods, styles and with some other artists that we refer to during different Art lessons.

The Learning Experience

Link to Art History (15 minutes)

The students were introduced to different images of egg decorations throughout the history of Art from the Europeana platform. 

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Observing the Basic Elements of Art (15 minutes)

The students were stimulated to have a closer look and observe in detail the decorations and designs on the eggs shown and notice the main basic elements that the respective artist used. This helped them as they had to create a pattern on the shape of the egg that they drew themselves and use the same elements.

Students observing some egg decorations and the basic elements of art.

Drawing the shape of an oval and creating a design or pattern (15 minutes)

The students were allowed to use their LearnPads to ignite their creativity on how they could create an interesting design or pattern. This allowed the students to be inspired and get different ideas from different sources of inspiration. 

Work in Progress (30 minutes)

Their task was to draw a big oval shape to represent their Easter egg and decorate it by creating an interesting design or pattern using different colours.

Some students used watercolours.

Final art works

Some of the students’ end results.

Discussion and Peer Assessment (15 minutes)

The students were invited to discuss their work with their peers, and they were given feedback from the teacher.

The main Learning outcomes and what helped in achieving them.

• Students observed and discussed the images of egg decorations works with the help of a Europeana visual images and others found online.
• Students discovered some aspects of his art works and the basic elements of art that he used. 
• Students researched some information about the basic elements of art namely patterns by using their LearnPads, Google, YouTube and Europeana platform.
• Students understood that they must create a design or pattern with the help of the images they have been exposed to and that they browsed on the Web.
• Students expressed them self creatively through the artwork they have done.
• Students peer assessed the art works of each other with their teacher. The comments and criticism both positive and the ways how an art could have been improved were essential. 

I would give advice to other educators to give more time to the students and let them explore and browse through the Europeana platform. This would give them the opportunity to create different interesting artworks.

My Europeana Learning Experience
As an educator who is aware of the Teaching with Europeana resources and who also have several learning published learning scenarios and story of implementations of other learning scenarios, I can say this is an essential resource for all the teachers as one can find may learning scenarios gathered all in one place. Both Europeana and Teaching with Europeana are helpful tools where one can find various relevant resources which one can make use of and adapt according to ones need. Art and science are two fun subjects, and one would easily find appropriate resources and incorporate them in a cross curricular way in the curriculum. This could be done using the general search engine or the subject sorting and search engine. Europeana resources facilitate the work of the teachers.

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? Why don’t you read about the related learning scenario? Easter is here! Let’s decorate some eggs! (EN-CUR-649) created by Aikaterini Spitsa

Did you find this story of implementation interesting? You might also like: 

• Let’s Discover Easter Eggs Decoration! (LS-RO-523) implemented by Alina Mihaela Tataru
• The Legacy of Our Ancestors (EN-CUR-379) implemented by Nicoletta Hustiuc
• The Revival of Patterns and Symmetrical Designs (LS-MT-108) implemented by Brendan Buttigieg

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

Public Domain Mark 1.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Rijksmuseum.