Of course we start the day with the basics. Where is it, what do they speak, etc., etc.? We spend a little time on some of the more famous landmarks (like the St. Petersburg Palaces, Hermitage Museum, Red Square), people (Joseph Stalin, the missing Princess Anastasia legend), and cultural aspects (like Matryoshka dolls). For our cultural "deep dive" we talked about Russian foods, which was not ideal given our craft project, but kids always like learning about food so that's what I went with.
For our project, we looked at one of my most favorite aspects of Russian culture, Faberge Eggs!
I saw this project on Pinterest, but it used real hollowed out eggs, so they were small. Knowing this kids the way I do, they are not patient enough to make tiny decorations for their eggs. Instead, I made larger "eggs" for them to decorate.
I used balloons and tape to shape the balloons into a more egg-like shape. Then I made paper mâché to cover the balloons. Two layers is enough. Once dry, I popped and removed the balloons and covered the openings with a little extra paper mâché. Then I went ahead a pre-painted the eggs in different colors. (I ended up using 1 base coat of white, then 2 layers of acrylic color mixed with a little glossy medium so they are a little shiny.)
To decorate the eggs, we have glitter glue, shiny paper, and shaped/scrapbooking hole punches. I spent a lot of money on this project because of the the hole punches. Students chose their favorite color eggs and let their imaginations run wild. This was really successful because it appealed to their attraction to shiny objects.
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