In our Easter Bunny Factory every day has its place in the narrative. Monday opens the week — the Krasnoludki receive aprons, badges, their first production tasks. Tuesday introduces the rhythm of work — the first orders, the first friendly arguments about who bakes and who paints. Thursday brings a riddle — the Mischief Wind hides ingredients and the children must find them. Friday is the great discovery — hidden presents, the finale of the whole week-long story.
And Wednesday? Wednesday is breath.
Wednesday is the day on which the Bunny Factory takes a brief pause from its own narrative and lets into the room something that reminds everyone — the Children and us, adults — what we are really living Easter for. Wednesday is the day of animals. This Wednesday, into our Factory came chicks, ducks and, for the surprise effect, millipedes. And it was one of the most beautiful days of the whole week.
Why Wednesday and not Monday
The pedagogy of the thematic day, which we have been developing for years, rests on precise thinking about what is happening in a Child’s head and when. Not everything can be given on the first day. Not everything works when the Child is not yet in the narrative. A thematic week works when each element lands at the right moment of the emotional curve.
Monday is excitement that the Child does not yet know how to orient themselves in. Tuesday is the first engagement. And only Wednesday — the middle of the week, the day on which the Child is already up to their ears in the theme but not yet tired — is the moment when something very special can be given. Something that works more strongly than it would on day one, when there are too many emotions to take in.
Animals are exactly such an element. Introduced on Monday they would be one of many new impressions — and would probably soon blur into the thicket of the first days. Introduced on Wednesday, when the Child already understands that this whole week is about something special — they become the culmination. A small, quiet, but deep event.
What actually happened
Wednesday morning began as usual — Krasnoludki in aprons, in badges, ready to work. And then transport crates rolled into the room. First the chicks. Then the ducks. And at the end — something the Children did not expect at all — a container with millipedes.
The chicks were nestlings. Small, yellow, barely standing on their feet. Each Child could take a chick into their hand, feel the warmth, see how down covers the thin little legs. Some chicks fell asleep at once in the hands — because for a chick, the warmth and safety of the Child’s hand are exactly the same as the warmth and safety of the nest. A Child holding a sleeping chick in their hand feels this without words. Feels that they have become someone’s nest.
The ducks were a little older and a little less sleepy. Their role was different — to bring movement, splash, laughter. The Skrzaty, the youngest group, laughed at the ducks the most. Because ducks, unlike all the other animals that come to us, peck at shoes, come up close, quack loudly, are as boisterous as the youngest Krasnoludki themselves. A three-year-old seeing a duck for the first time in life sees in it a kindred spirit.
And the millipedes? That was the surprise. A millipede is not the first animal that comes to mind in the context of Easter. But that is exactly why it appeared on this day. Because Children who had already grown comfortable with chicks and ducks were ready for something strange. Something they would not expect. Something that first elicits an “ew!” and then — on closer encounter — becomes fascinating.
A millipede is fascinating. It has a hundred pairs of legs. It moves in a wave — the legs shift in sequence, like a musical instrument. When you touch it with a finger, it curls slightly, as though bowing. It does not bite, sting or run away — it lies in the hand and looks around, as far as one can look around without eyes. Krasnoludki who at first watched from a distance, halfway through the session were already asking whether they could hold the millipede again.
What a Child builds when they meet a millipede
Here we want to be honest with you — bringing a millipede into the Easter classroom is not obvious. We could have stuck with the classic chick. We could have added a rabbit. Why a millipede?
Because a Child who lives through the moment of “ew, but fascinating” is practising something they do not practise in any other circumstance. They are practising the capacity to open up to what is alien. They are practising thinking of the type “I do not know this, but I will try”. They are practising the stance of a scientist, who in the face of a strange insect does not slam shut, but approaches and asks. This stance is worth its weight in gold in adult life, and in childhood is built precisely in such moments.
A Child who today held a millipede for the first time in their life will tomorrow look differently at the spider under the bed. The day after that, differently at the frog by the pond. In ten years, sitting in a biology class, they will look differently at the cycle of an ecosystem. Because they will carry in their head the memory: I once already knew such a strange creature. It was not scary. It was interesting.
In pedagogy people sometimes speak of “the exposure effect” — a Child who has contact with a diversity of beings becomes themselves more open to diversity. They like more things. They fear fewer things. They wonder more readily than they reject. That is the stance we want to build in our Krasnoludki. The millipede on the Wednesday of the Bunny Factory is one of the bricks of that building.
Empathy that grows from small things
In all our groups the day of animals leaves a trace that no other day leaves. There is something special in it — because the Child meets someone. A small living being who depends on adults, just as the Child themselves depends on theirs. The Child senses this parallel without being able to name it.
A chick in the hand is an excellent school of what gentleness is. Because a Child holding a chick usually hears from an adult two words: “very gently”. And that is enough. The Child themselves, sensing the fragility of the chick, knows how to hold it. They do not squeeze. They do not toss. They guide the hand so that the chick can sleep. That is the moment when the Child learns gestures of care — which are the foundation of care in later life, regardless of whether it concerns an animal, a younger sibling, a partner, their own children.
A duck teaches something else — the joy of seeing someone else play. Because the duck plays. It quacks, it runs, it pecks at the floor, it splashes into the water. And the Child sees that this joy is real, that the duck is capable of being happy. A Child who sees another’s joy and is themselves happy because of it — learns positive empathy. This is a rare variant of empathy, rarely written about, but which in adult life saves one from envy and allows one to delight in the successes of others.
And the millipede? The millipede teaches the hardest thing. Empathy towards what is strange. Empathy towards a creature that is not sympathetic at first sight. Empathy towards what most people would step on. A Child who learns to respect a millipede will learn to respect the rest of the living world — including its less photogenic fragments.
Wednesday in the narrative of the week
Returning to the pedagogy of the thematic week — the day of animals in the middle of the week does one more thing not noticed at once. It grounds. Because the whole week is a story about Easter, about tradition, about painted eggs, about babka cake, about the bunny. All this is beautiful, but all this is narrative. The Child is in a story.
Wednesday brings in something that is not a story. The millipede is real. The chick is not a character from a fairy tale — it is a creature that in a moment will be taken away by its keeper, will grow up and become a hen. This contrast between story and reality is very valuable in pedagogy. Because the Child learns in it that story (Easter, the holidays, tradition) and reality (chicks, ducks, the real spring) are somehow connected. That the Easter bunny symbolises something — spring, rebirth, new life — that really exists. The chick is the proof. Not a character in a story, but new life that has just begun.
In this context the day of animals gains a new layer. It is a feast of spring, a feast of new life, a feast of nature’s fertility — which is exactly what Easter was, before it became a religious holiday. This is very deep, very old, very true pedagogy. And exactly because of this, when on Friday, the last day of the Bunny Factory, the Krasnoludki return to their themes, they carry within them something more than only a story. They carry an experience of spring, of which the chick was the embodiment.
What a Parent can do
Easter in Poland is a holiday that still holds tightly to tradition. Let us use that. As you walk through the holidays with your Child, please do not focus only on painted eggs and on the mazurek. Let this holiday also be a feast of spring. Let the Child notice that everything is blooming, that there are first buds, that the swallows are coming back, that lambs are appearing in the meadows. An Easter without this layer is a holiday half as rich.
You can also, around Easter, visit some farm with young animals. Many agritourism farms specifically organise for this period open days with chicks, lambs, kids. A Child who has held a lamb in their hand at Easter — will remember this Easter to the end of their life.
And one more thing — please do not avoid “strange” animals. When the Child notices a snail on the pavement, take a moment. When they see a caterpillar, come closer. When they find a millipede in the cellar — fantastic! In normal life we have plenty of opportunities for such small encounters with unnamed creatures, which the Child would not notice on their own had the adult not stopped. These are little flecks of nature education that cumulatively build an attitude.
What this is all for
Because the Krasnoludki walk into Thursday of the Bunny Factory with something new in their memory. They carry within them a chick that fell asleep in their hand. They carry within them a duck that laughed at them with its quack. They carry within them a millipede that lay calmly on a finger. These memories will return. Sometimes in a month, sometimes in years. Every time they meet, in life, something living, small, fragile — a circuit will be triggered in them that first activated this Wednesday.
And this is the gift that cannot be measured by any test or counted in any results. The gift of sensitivity to life. The gift of attention to small things. The gift of stopping by a creature that others would walk past without notice. These are the gifts the Krasnoludki receive this Wednesday. And they carry them with them — through Thursday, through Friday, through the next Easter, through all of their childhood.
And in the end — perhaps through all their life.