Ukrainian Eggs
Suring, WI
Vocabulary
Drop-pull technique: A simple way of decorating Ukrainian Easter eggs. Wax is “dropped” on an egg and then quickly pulled into a tail shape using a straight pin.
Fertility: (sounds like, fur-TIL-uh-tee) The ability to reproduce.
Kistka: (sounds like, KITS-ka) A stick, about the size of a pencil, with a metal funnel at one end, used to apply melted wax to an egg.
Krizanky: (sounds like, cry-ZAN-key) Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated by using pulled wax and dyes.
Lent: The six weeks before Easter.
Pysanky: (sounds like, pie-ZAN-key) Ukrainian Easter eggs decorated by using wax and dyes to make traditional symbols.
Ukrainian: (sounds like, you-CRAY-nee-in) From Ukraine, a country in Eastern Europe.
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Journal Questions
 Does your family have special Easter traditions? Or, does your family where the adults hide something and the kids
have to find it?
Has an older person in your family taught you how to do something special?
Have you ever seen something and wondered how it was made? Describe that experience. If you ever found out how it
was made, tell the details of how you found out.
Have you ever decorated eggs? What tools did you use? What were the steps in your process?
Have you ever tried to blow out an egg? Was it easy or hard?
Do you know someone who does their art in only one time of the year?
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Resources For Teachers
 Ukrainian Egg-Cessories has two egg posters that you can download and
print out on a color printer.
How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs (Pysanky) has five black and white drawings of
pysanka that can be printed and used as coloring pages.
Stepping Out in Chicago
is produced by the Chicago Public Schools. This page features the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago and has three links to worksheets for students.
KinderArt offers “Egg-citing,” a lesson plan for using
modified wax resist egg decorating techniques with young children.
The Ukrainian Museum in New York has an on-line slide show
of pysanky that includes eggs decorated with traditional motifs and eggs with very contemporary re-interpretations of the tradition. Use these images with your students to discuss how artists
can re-interpret traditional art forms.
Blue Skies offers an excellent series of articles on Ukrainian history in
Ukraine and in Canada (much of which parallels Ukrainian immigration history in the United States).
 The March 2002 issue of FACES student magazine
features Ukraine. See an outline of the issue, and a teacher’s guide for using it with your class.
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Resources For Students
Betty was named a
National Heritage Fellow in 1996 by the
National Endowment for the Arts. Who else from Wisconsin has been honored as a
"national artistic treasure"?
The Ukrainian Gift Shop is a family-run business in Minneapolis. Find out
more about pysanky, and three generations who love this art form!
You can see other examples of Ukrainian-style art by looking at the on-line collections
of the Ukrainian Museum of Canada.
Want to see a giant pysanka? Visit this site to see the five thousand pound egg sculpture in
Vegreville,
Alberta, Canada, home to many Ukrainian Canadians. Click on the picture to find
out more!
Go here to discover Basic Facts about Ukraine.
Does your library have these books?
The Bird’s Gift: A Ukrainian Easter Story
By Eric A. Kimmel, illustrated by Katya Krenina, 1999. 28pp.
Rochenka’s Eggs
By Patricia Polacco, Putnam & Grosset Group, 1988. Tells a miracle story of an egg artist in the United States.
Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and Symbols
By Gertrude Jobes, New York: Scarecrow Press, 1961. Learn more about pysanky symbols.
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Credits
Text written by Jamie Yuenger, edited by Anne Pryor.
Sources consulted include tape recorded interview with Betty Pisio Christenson by Michael Kline (9/21/98), with the tape housed at the Wisconsin Arts Board.
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