On the last day of the Easter Bunny Factory our Krasnoludki were not creating for themselves. Each Child stood over their own sheet, their own paper, their own material — but they were creating something that in a moment was going to leave preschool in a backpack, go home, and land directly in the hands of Mum or Dad. Each Child, using their talents, was preparing a gift for their loved ones.
This might seem a banal act. We were all once children, we all carried home from preschool cards and bead strings for our Parents. But what is happening in a Child’s head when they consciously create something for someone is one of the deepest pedagogies we know. And that is why every year, in our thematic week, at the very end, we build this moment — the moment when a Child sits down to work not for themselves but for their loved ones.
In this article we want to talk with you about why a gift made by a Child’s hands is, for the Child — not for us, not for you, for them — a priceless exercise in adulthood. And what you, as the recipients of these gifts, can do to make this moment, for the Child, even fuller.
Why giving
Let us begin from the basics. Why do we teach Children to give gifts at all? It might seem obvious — because giving is nice. But “because it is nice” is not enough as a pedagogical justification. Because many things are nice and we do not practise them in preschool.
Giving gifts matters to us because it builds in the Child one of the most difficult human capacities — the capacity to act for the sake of another. It sounds simple. In practice it is one of the hardest life skills, which many adults never fully master.
A three-year-old lives in a first-person world. The world for them is the sum of their own needs, desires, emotions. Other people appear in it mainly as sources of satisfaction (Mum, who feeds) or sources of frustration (Dad, who does not let them do something). Empathy develops gradually, throughout the whole of childhood. Full empathy — that is, the capacity to realise that another person has their own, independent of us, needs — is not yet present in preschool age. But the foundations for it begin to be laid precisely at this age. And one of the best tools for laying these foundations is conscious giving.
When the Child sits down to work on a gift for Mum, they do something they do not do in any other activity in preschool. They have to keep in mind two things at once: their own abilities (what can I do?) and the needs of another person (what does Mum like? what will make her happy?). These are two different brain centres which have to begin cooperating. That cooperation is exactly the skill an adult partner, work colleague, member of community needs. It begins here, in preschool, with a card for Mum.
Here and now, but for someone over there
There is one more level of this work we want to mention, because to us it is beautiful. A Child making a gift is physically present here, in the studio, but their thought is elsewhere — with the person for whom they are creating. This is a small but very important psychological move — stepping out of the present moment towards someone absent.
For a five-year-old this is an exercise in presence they do not expect. Because the Child usually lives in the present — they do not think about what was, do not think about what will be, do not think about who is not here. Here and now is their natural mode. And now we ask them, at the table, in the preschool studio, to think about their Mum. To imagine her. To think what she likes, what will please her. To make something which she — when in the evening she opens the Child’s backpack — will see and feel joy.
This is a small, slight act of social imagination. An act of empathy in pure form. An act turning the Child’s attention beyond themselves. And in their adult life they will need thousands of such acts. Every adult relationship is made up of such small acts. An adult who is a master at imagining the other’s needs — is a good partner, a good friend, a good employee, a good parent. An adult who lacks this capacity — cannot keep up any deep relationship.
The exercise begins in preschool. At the table. With paint. And with the thought of Mum.
”Talent and love” — as the caption puts it
In our internal narrative we often talk about this work in a very concrete way. Each Child, using their own talents and abilities, prepares a gift. That sentence carries an important pedagogy.
First — “their own talents”. Each Child has within them something they do better than other Children. One paints brilliantly. Another has patience for fine work with beads. A third comes up with surprising things from wood. A fourth folds paper beautifully. A fifth can focus on a single detail for half an hour. Each of them brings something different. And exactly that is why the gifts that come back to your homes are so different. Because each is the signature of a particular Child, of their particular abilities.
Second — “with love”. This word matters to us. We say it openly to the Children. “You are doing this for Mum. For the Mum you love. Put your love into it.” It sounds sentimental? Maybe. But it works. Because a Child who has in their head a concrete image of love for a concrete person works with a different level of focus than a Child who is simply doing “art class”. Love motivates. Love focuses. Love gives meaning to every small detail.
Third — “talent” is consciously practised. On the last day of the Bunny Factory we do not help the Child create the gift. We do not correct. We do not suggest. Because the gift is to come from their talent, not ours. A clumsy card is more valuable than a pretty one in which the teacher had a hand. Because the clumsy card is the Child’s work. The pretty card — is the teacher’s work. And Mum is getting a gift from her Child, not from the teacher.
What specifically comes back to homes
If you peek into the backpacks of your Children after the Bunny Factory, you sometimes see things that are hard to describe. Salt-dough Easter eggs with strange patterns. Cards with the word “MUM” written so crookedly you cannot tell whether it is writing or decoration. Paper bunnies with three eyes. Necklaces of pierced macaroni. A jar filled with confetti and labelled “for Daddy”. Each of these gifts is unique, because each is the work of a particular Child.
Some of these gifts you keep for many months, perhaps years. We know about it, because sometimes our Krasnoludki come back to us with stories. “Mum still keeps on the fridge the card I made in preschool.” These are the sentences that please us most. Because it means that the Child’s gesture was not treated as temporary mess but as something that has, in the home, status.
Other of these gifts disappear. That happens too. And we very much ask: if you have a choice between throwing away and keeping — please keep. Even for a while. Even till the next season. Because a Child who in six months finds in your home their old card and sees that you are keeping it — receives from you a confirmation no words can confirm. “My Mum keeps what I made. So this is important. So I am important.”
This psychological move — the Child seeing that you value their work — is one of the strongest tools for building self-worth. Stronger than any verbal praise. Because in the Child’s brain a parent’s deed is taken more seriously than a parent’s words.
Creating from love — adult consequences
Here we want to talk with you about something we do not practise in other sessions. About the capacity to create something from love — without reward, without expecting praise, without transactional thinking.
Modern society is becoming more and more transactional. Every kind of work has its price. Every favour is to be returned. Every gesture is judged. Adults live in a climate in which generosity is becoming rare — because there always appears the thought “and what will I get out of it”.
A Child who from earliest years creates gifts for their loved ones practises an entirely different stance. They give without expecting anything in return. Give because they like to. Give because of Mum. Give because they sense it makes sense. Every such exercise builds in them a stance which in adult psychology is called “generosity” or “intrinsic motivation to give”. These are fundamental competences for anyone who wants in adult life to have deep relationships.
Because the adult who cannot give without a transaction will, in a relationship with a partner, soon meet difficulty. Because no love is a transaction. No child collects from their parents in exchange for favours. No deep friendship counts the balance. All these relationships require the capacity to give without calculation. And this capacity is learned from the earliest years — or it is not.
In our preschool we teach it. In every thematic week, every holiday, every occasion for a gift. Because we know that what is built here — at the table, with paint, with a strange card for Mum — will bear fruit through the Child’s whole life.
It is not the result — it is the gesture
Here we want to be specific with you, because this is important. In our pedagogy of the gift it does not matter what the gift looks like. It only matters that the Child made it.
Sounds banal? Maybe. But in practice we see that adults find it difficult. Because the adult is judging. They look at a card and see that it is not pretty, crooked, unfinished. And they instinctively want to correct something — either openly (redrawing the line), or subtly (drawing attention: “you could have done this better”). Every such correction takes from the Child something that is then hard to give back — authorship of their own work.
That is why our request is simple. When the Child hands you the gift, please:
— first look the Child in the eye, not at the gift — then say “thank you” — then notice the gift as a whole, not the details — then ask about a detail (“what is this here?”, “tell me how you did it”) — then find a place for it — visible, important, on the fridge, on a shelf, in the kitchen
That is all. Please do not correct. Please do not suggest how it could have looked. Please do not compare with the gifts of older siblings. Let it simply be the Child’s gesture — received with the weight it deserves.
A Child who gives a gift and sees that you value it receives one of the deepest life lessons: giving makes sense. It is appreciated. It enriches relationships. This will stay with them all their life. And in every adult relationship they will respond to this exercise from childhood.
What a Parent can do further
The first practice — reciprocating. Please make for the Child gifts with your hands. Not bought. Made. A small card with a love note in their backpack. A little biscuit with their name baked on Friday. A wire-bent heart. Small gestures in which you show the Child that you can do this too. That in your home a pedagogy of giving applies.
The second practice — creating together. Joint making of gifts for loved ones (cards, biscuits, small decorations). For grandma. For uncle. For a neighbour. Even if the gift is banal, the act itself of creating together with an adult builds in the Child the pattern — adults do this too, adults remember about others too.
The third practice — telling stories of gifts. Please, in the Child’s presence, tell what important gifts you received in your life. From grandma, from the first boyfriend, from someone close who is no longer here. Let the Child see that a gift — especially a handmade one — is a keepsake that lasts for years. This builds in them the awareness that their gifts too will one day become someone’s keepsake.
The fourth practice — not throwing away. Please keep the Child’s cards. In one folder, in a box on a shelf. After years, when the Child is already a teenager, you can show them these treasures. The reaction is always the same — emotion, astonishment that you kept it all. This moment builds the parent–child relationship on an entirely new level.
What this is all for
Because our Krasnoludki finish the Bunny Factory with backpacks full of gifts for their loved ones. Every gift is unique. Every is the work of the particular hands of a particular Child. Every is an act of love that you are about to receive in your own kitchen.
We hope that our Children, when they are adults, will also create gifts with their hands. Maybe not cards — for there will be other forms. But the gesture of giving from oneself, of making something out of nothing, of putting in one’s talent and love, and offering it to someone close — that gesture will stay with them. Because it was practised from the fourth, fifth, sixth year of life.
In the adult world, in which everything is for sale, a handmade gift is becoming rare. But if at least in our Krasnoludki we manage to keep this capacity — they will be those adults whom other adults will value above others. Because the gifts received from them will be real. And reality is today the rarest currency.
Because learning through play is what the Krasnoludki love most. And making gifts for loved ones is one of the most beautiful forms of that play. Full of love. Full of meaning. And leaving a trace — in the Child’s brain, in the Parent’s heart, on the fridge, in memory, in all the adult life still ahead of them.