Here Comes Peter Cottontail

 

We finished watching the Bass and Rankin Peter Cottontail movie today. The children had a great time trying to guess which holiday on the calendar Peter would fall through next on his quest to save his job as Easter Bunny.  Iron Tail tries to ruin Peter’s chances but only ends up helping him to succeed…much to our great delight!

 

After the movie, we read the story Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco. It is the story of an old woman who decorates the most beautiful Easter eggs in all of Russia. One winter day she saves a goose that has been hurt by  a hunter. When the goose, Rechenka,  begins to heal,  she accidentally destroys all the eggs Babushka had been decorating during the winter. The very next morning, Rechenka begins laying beautifully decorated eggs and continues to lay one every day for 12 days. Babushka takes them to the Easter Festival and wins first prize.  When Babushka returns home, she finds that Rechenka has left her one  final gift .

After we read the story, I showed the children a goose egg. They were amazed by its size and weight. One of the girls did not believe there wasn’t a gosling inside. I tried to convince her, but I knew I had failed when she gently held it…and sniffed it…and placed it carefully next to her ear, listening for tiny honks. I then showed them a big block of beeswax and talked about the art of making pysanky eggs. We also looked at a few pysanky eggs that my family has made. There are some beautiful examples at this site: http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/pysanky/

We are going to have one more class next week. We will finish some Easter stories and make a rabbit paperback puppet. We will meet up again in May. I am thinking three weeks, but we can plan for just two if that better meets your needs. Let me know what you think.