Moncure art class creates Ukrainian Easter eggs

Posted Tuesday, March 25, 2008

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Moncure, NC - Barbara Townsend, art teacher at Moncure School and J. S. Waters School, and Marsha Servas Burr, receptionist at Moncure, have been working with Nicole Tinsley's fifth grade class to create Ukrainian Easter Eggs called Pysanky.

Since they could not use the true art form with melted beeswax, Townsend gave the students plastic eggs and masking tape to create a smooth surface to draw their design. Instead of colored dyes, they used Sharpie markers. Mrs. Burr gave each student a packet containing pictures of symbols and their meanings and the meanings of colors used on Pysanky eggs. No two eggs are ever the same and each one tells a story.

Burr prepared the class for the project by reading Rechenka's Eggs by Patricia Polacco.

“It is a wonderful story suitable for grades K-6 about a Russian Grandmother who decorates Pysanky to win first prize at a festival and the goose who helps her,” explained Burr.

She then showed the class Pysanky eggs she bought in Kiev, Ukraine last summer. Her grandparents are from the former Russian republic of Belarus. On Thursday, March 20, each student will explain the meaning of his or her egg during a classroom presentation.

The students are reading buddies with the second graders in Dr. Jody Cleven's class so they also took their completed eggs to show to the second grade class. Rechenka's Eggs was a Luscious Literature book read in Cleven's class. Each week a different book is chosen for Luscious Literature. Luscious Literature is a project funded by the Chatham Education Foundation.

Earlier this month Burr spoke to the sixth and seventh grade social studies classes at Moncure about her heritage and her trip to Russia and Ukraine.