One December day we took our Krasnoludki on a trip. Not to a museum. Not to an amusement park. Not to a shopping centre. To a real craft workshop in which adult people — ordinary, ours, Polish — every day create Christmas baubles. Traditional, glass, blown, silvered and painted by hand.
It was one of the most beautiful experiences of this winter. For us, the carers, certainly. I hope for the Krasnoludki too. I remember their eyes when they saw for the first time how a person blows out a sphere of glass from a tube. When they saw how another person poured into a bauble a silvery liquid and turned it until the whole inside began to shine. When they saw how a third person with a careful touch painted onto the bauble tiny patterns.
In this text we want to talk with you about why a visit to a real craft workshop is, for a Child, one of the deepest experiences a preschool can give them. And why we, the Krasnoludki, regularly organise such trips — not only before the holidays, but throughout the whole year.
A world the child does not see
Let us begin with context. The contemporary child rarely sees how something is made. Most things they use in everyday life — from clothes through toys to food — appear as if from nothing. Mum goes to the shop and comes back with packages. Dad presses a key and files appear. Grandma buys pierogi in the fridge instead of making them.
This sounds banal, but has deep pedagogical consequences. A Child who has never seen the production process has in their head a magical world in an unhealthy sense — a world in which things simply are. With no origin. With no process. With no people who put work into them. This is the world of the consumer. Not the world of the creator.
A preschool child is at the perfect age to turn this paradigm around. Because at the age of three, four, five, six the Child’s brain is extraordinarily susceptible to the observation of process. The Child does not analyse — they absorb. It is enough to show them how something is made and a lasting model is built in their head. “A bauble is made by blowing glass and silvering it.” This model will stay with them for life.
And that is exactly why every year we organise trips to craft workshops. Real ones. Not pretend ones “as a show for children”, but working. Because a Child who sees a craftsman at work receives something no worksheet can give them.
The first delight — glass that lives
A visit to the bauble factory begins with delight. The Krasnoludki enter a large workshop hall. It is warm inside — because somewhere on the side stands a gas furnace in which glass is melted. The air has a specific smell — of hot material, slightly metallic. The children at once feel they are in another world.
A man is standing there. The craftsman, in an apron, in safety glasses. He has in his hand a long metal tube — like the kind we sometimes see in films about Venetian glassmakers. He takes from the furnace a piece of molten glass — it is orange-red, pulsing with light. He brings the glass to the end of the tube. He blows. Slowly. Patiently. With each new breath the glass expands, forms a sphere.
The Krasnoludki watch as if enchanted. Some have eyes huge, open wide. Others say quietly — “wow”. Others say nothing. All stand still.
This is the moment when the Child sees that glass is alive. That it is not only the hard, smooth material known from home. That in a different state — hot, pliable — glass is soft as dough, supple to movement, obedient to the adult’s hands. This image enters the Child deeply. Because it changes their understanding of the world. Materials are not as we know them. They have other states. They can change.
This is a philosophy of the world that cannot be explained — it can only be seen. And the Child in the glass workshop sees.
The second delight — silvering
After blowing the sphere another lady takes it, once it has cooled. She shows the children that the bauble for now is only thin, transparent glass. Colourless. Empty inside. “Now look what we will do.”
She inserts a small pipe into the bauble. Pours in a silvery liquid — silver nitrate in a special composition. A bit of the solution — and the bauble lies on a tray. The lady begins to turn it. Slowly. From hand to hand. Constantly turning. The liquid spreads inside, covers with a thin layer the entire glass from within. After a minute a wonderful effect appears. The bauble, until then transparent, begins to shine. At first lightly, then ever more strongly. Finally it is a full, mirror-perfect silver balloon.
The children open their eyes wide again. “Magic!” — shouts one of the Mędrki, almost with a squeal. No. Not magic. Chemistry. The chemical reaction of silver with glass. But for a five-year-old this is indistinguishable. What matters is that they see — that before their eyes a silver sphere has appeared from nothing.
This is the second stage of pedagogical delight. The first told the Child — glass can be soft. The second tells them — colourless can become silver. Every such moment expands the child’s picture of what is possible.
The third moment — their own masterpieces
After watching the full production process (blowing, silvering, the last layer of outer paint) the Krasnoludki move to the second part of the trip. This is the part they look forward to most. Each Child gets their own ready, silver bauble. Empty — in the sense of undecorated. And paints for baubles — special, acrylic, in vivid colours. And thin brushes.
I explain to the children that now they are the masters. Every bauble they decorate will hang on the family Christmas tree. This is not an exercise. This is real craftsman’s work.
The Krasnoludki sit down at a long table. Each by their own bauble. The craftsman walks among them, sometimes giving a hint — how to hold the brush, how not to wipe the recently laid dots. But for most of the time it is quiet. Because the children are absorbed.
Some paint flowers. Others dots. Others abstract patterns. One of our Skrzaty painted on her bauble a smiling face — crooked, asymmetrical, but happy. Another child divided the bauble into two colours — half blue, half green. Each has done something of their own.
After an hour all the baubles are drying on a wooden frame. Each is different. Each is beautiful. Each belongs to a particular child. And each in a moment will travel home.
What is built in the Child’s head
The first thing — respect for craftsmanship. A Child who has seen a person blow a bauble out of hot glass will never forget that hour. The next time at home they see a traditional bauble on the tree — they will see it differently. Not as a product from a factory. As the result of work of a particular person who stood by the hot furnace, blew, silvered, painted.
This respect for craftsmanship is one of the foundations of adult maturity. An adult who respects manual work treats all the things in their home differently. Buys differently. Values handmade work differently. Chooses gifts differently. Understands the work of their parents and other people around them differently. These are all subtle but real consequences.
The second thing — a model of an adult creator. Here we want to draw your attention to something rarely seen in pedagogy. In our world the child has contact mainly with “service” adults — shop assistants, waiters, doctors, teachers. All of them perform their roles professionally, but the child sees only their end product — the service.
A craftsman is an entirely different kind of adult. A craftsman creates. A craftsman has a result you can see. A craftsman shows the process from beginning to end. A Child who observes a craftsman receives the model of an adult they rarely meet — an adult who creates something out of nothing, using their hands, their knowledge, their patience.
This model is, for the Child, an inspiration. “I can be such an adult. I can learn how to do something with my hands.” Regardless of whether our Krasnoludki one day become glassmakers — or doctors, or teachers, or programmers — their picture of work as creative, manual, with a result you can see, will stay with them.
The third thing — their own agency. Every Child returning from the bauble factory carries with them their own, hand-decorated bauble. The next morning the Child gives it to Mum or Dad. “This is for our tree. I made it myself.” This moment is, for the Child, a strong confirmation of their own agency. They have created something. Something that means. Something that will hang in the home.
In the years to come, when the bauble is taken out of the box, the Child will remember it. “I made this bauble when I was four”. For them this bauble will be more than a decoration. It will be an anchor — connecting their adult self with the child they once were. This is the gift that craftsmanship, unlike consumption, gives every creator.
The fourth thing — tradition as a living thing. Christmas baubles are not a museum exhibit. They are elements of a living, Polish Christmas tradition continued through generations. The Krasnoludki, when they see a craftsman creating a bauble, link themselves with this chain. With grandparents who hung such baubles when they were children. With great-grandmothers who bought such baubles before the war. With the whole chain of Polish Christmas Eve, holidays, the tree.
This awareness of being part of a tradition is for the Child a precious anchor of identity. A Child who knows that their bauble is part of something bigger than only themselves carries within them a sense of being rooted. And a sense of being rooted is one of the most important gifts of adult maturity.
What a Parent can do at home
The first practice — looking for craft workshops. In Poland many traditional workshops still exist — glass, ceramic, sculpture, sewing. Some hold open days. Some can be visited by appointment. Please look in your area. The Child’s year is worth planning to include several such visits.
The second practice — joint production at home. You do not need to go out to show the Child that things are made. You can bake bread together. Make soap together. Sew simple little tea bags together. Build a small bird feeder together. Every such project is a mini-factory at home.
The third practice — buying handmade things. When you have a choice, please choose handmade things. Let the Child see that your home is full of objects that someone made. A wooden toy from a carpenter. Ceramic mugs from a local studio. A sewn outfit from grandma. Each of these objects teaches the Child that mass-produced products are not the only option.
The fourth practice — thematic excursions. Polish cities are full of places that can be visited — the porcelain manufacture in Bolesławiec, the paper mill in Konstancin, the smithy in Wąsosz. Let one such trip every six months become a family tradition.
The fifth practice — telling about your own work. Please tell the Child what you do at work. Specifically. “At my work I design websites — I will show you tomorrow what code looks like.” “At my work I treat people — I will tell you how the heart works.” A Child who hears about their parents’ work sees work as concrete, interesting, meaningful — and not as an abstract place into which the parent disappears in the morning.
What this is all for
Because our Krasnoludki walk into December with a hand-decorated bauble — and with the image of an adult who stood by a furnace and created something from hot glass. These are two elements which together compose into one inner truth. “The world has its craftsmen. I too can be one of them.”
This truth is an anchor the contemporary child very much needs. Because the world in which they grow up is full of products whose origin remains invisible. Clothes from Bangladesh. Toys from China. Food from the hypermarket. All this comes “from nowhere”.
A trip to a real bauble factory breaks this invisibility. It shows the Child that somewhere there, close by, are people who create things with their own hands. And that they themselves are also able. Because they have just decorated their bauble.
I hope that in twenty years, when our Krasnoludki are adults, some of them will one day step away from the screen and think — “I want to make something with my hands”. Maybe bake bread. Maybe sew a bag. Maybe carve a chair. Maybe simply build a planter for a balcony plant. Each of these moves will be a continuation of the December day when they stood in a glassmaker’s workshop and saw that glass can be soft.
And those baubles they decorated then, every winter will return to family Christmas trees. First with their parents. Then with themselves, when they have their own homes. Then maybe with their own children. Every such bauble will be a quiet record — “once I was a preschooler who made something with their own hands”.
Because learning through play is what the Krasnoludki love most. And the December trip to the bauble factory is one of those lessons that stays for generations.