Find BooksActivitiesGames
Reading Rainbow
Parents & Teachers
About Reading RainbowAbout LeVarContestPrintable Song Lyrics

Rechenka’s Eggs

Language: English

An injured goose rescued by Babushka, having broken the painted eggs intended for the Easter Festival in Moskva, lays thirteen marvelously colored eggs to replace them. She then leaves behind one final miracle—in egg form—before returning to her own kind. The author, Patricia Polacco demonstrates the traditional Ukrainian egg-painting art (pysanky), and shares how she got the idea for this story. Viewers will gain a new appreciation for the egg in art as LeVar decorates eggs, and finds objects that are egg-shaped. Viewers also see the practical side during a montage of animal babies emerging from eggs.

  

Here are activities to do after watching this episode:

Prehistoric Eggs

You will need:

  • eggs
  • saucepan
  • food coloring
  • bowl
  • metal spoon
  • lettuce

Directions:

  1. Put the eggs in a saucepan filled with cool water and place on the stove.
  2. Bring the eggs to a boil over medium heat, turn down the heat, and gently simmer the eggs for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
  3. Fill a bowl with cool water, add several drops of food coloring, and mix. (Use a different bowl for each different color.
  4. Carefully crack the shells of each egg all over with the back of a spoon. Do not peel the eggshells yet.
  5. Place the eggs in the colored water until cool.
  6. Take the eggs out of the water with the spoon. Peel the cracked eggs. The eggs will have a mottled look where food coloring seeped through the cracks.
  7. Put shredded lettuce in a serving bowl to look like grass and put the “prehistoric eggs” on the lettuce to serve.
  

Glistening Eggs

Break away for the ordinary…try this activity for some unusual looks to the traditional egg.

Mix sweetened condensed milk and food coloring to create several colors of “paint.” Paint this mixture onto giant eggs cut from 12” x 18” sheets of construction paper. When dry these eggs may be displayed together for a beautiful, glistening effect.

Artful Option: Find a large branch and put it in a pot full of soil. Then punch a hole at the top of each glistening egg you have made and tie a piece of yarn to hang on the branch. Now, enjoy your glistening egg tree!

More Egg Ideas

Blow up a balloon and tie the end to hold in the air. Then dip colorful yarn in glue, which has been thinned a little with water and wrap the yarn around a balloon many times. You may want to sprinkle it with transparent glitter. Hang the balloon to dry. When the yarn is dry, pop the balloon and pull it out of the center. You have a very colorful egg shape…. But be careful, it is very fragile.

Check out some of these books on your
next trip to the library:

  • The Talking Eggs by Robert D. San Souci
  • Stefan & Olga by Betsy Day
  • I Made It Myself by Sabine Lohf

READING RAINBOW has a resource library that includes teacher guide materials as well as reading programs for use in the public libraries. You can download these resources from GPN at:
www.gpnresources.com

If you would like more information about READING RAINBOW or if you would like to learn more about other educational products please visit the GPN web site.

Books | Games | LeVar | Contest | TV Times | Parents & Teachers
http://www.pbskids.org/readingrainbow
© 2007 Educate Media-Reading Rainbow, LLC. All rights reserved. | PBS KIDS Privacy Policy