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• Easter Day (Sunday) is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after 21 March. The earliest date for this is 22 March and the latest 25 April.

• Easter used to be called EOSTERMONANY, after the Saxon goddess EOSTRE.

• Now we associate rabbits with Easter. Originally it was the hare, which was Eostre's sacred animal. This magic hare was supposed to leave eggs hidden in the garden for children to find.

• Eggs represent new life, springtime and the beginning of a better time after a long winter.

• A popular tradition at Easter was to roll hard boiled coloured eggs down a slope into a goal at the bottom. These eggs were called PACE EGGS. The word 'PACE' comes from the French PASQUE, which means Easter.

• In earlier times skipping was a Good Friday tradition for children using long washing lines. Sometimes Good Friday was called Long Rope Day.

• In some parts of the country BARRING OUT was popular with children. Just before Easter children locked their teacher out of the school until an extra day's holiday was given!

• In pre-Roman times the Celts lit bonfires at dawn at Easter time and marched to a magic tree, which they decorated with evergreens and flowers. Prayers were said for good crops and lots of children!

• In the medieval period a man wearing a green mask would dance around the village to ask 'the gods for plentiful crops.

• Another medieval custom was called 'lifting' or 'heaving'. On Easter Monday the men in a village would go from house to house and lift up the woman in a basket. The next day it was the women's turn - if they could manage it!

• In the nineteenth century hill top processions on Easter Sunday followed by picnics were very popular.

• The earliest known mosaic dates from 3000 BC (over 5000 years ago) from Samaria - part of a country now called Iraq.

• Mosaics were made popular by the Romans, over 2000 years ago, who used them to decorate floors and walls.

• At first they were made of naturally coloured stones, tiles, pebbles and glass cut into tiny cube-shapes by hand. These were called TESSARHE (TESS-A-RIE).

• Some mosaics consisted of patterns only. These are called geometric patterns.

• Many use diagonal lines to divide square with half of each square blacked in.

• Others are scenes from nature, everyday life, famous events and the worship of gods.

• Several fine mosaics have been excavated in this country. Some of the very best are at Fishbourne in Sussex.

• Mosaics are also very important in the decoration of buildings connected with the religion of Islam.

If you put two lines of these together interesting patterns emerge.

Can you make other patterns from them?