This month something special is happening at our preschool. All of our groups — Mędrki, Elfy, Skrzaty — are getting to know Krakow. Each in their own way. Each at their own pace. Each on their own terms. The Mędrki are reading about King Popiel. The Elfy are building Wawel Castle out of cardboard. And the Skrzaty — our youngest, bravest, most curious-about-the-world Krasnoludki, three- and four-year-olds — have made friends with the Wawel Dragon.
A three-year-old being friends with the Wawel Dragon? Sounds a little funny. A little far-fetched. But in our pedagogy — really. Just like that. The Skrzaty know the Dragon is theirs. They speak of him as the Dragon. With both fear and tenderness. One of our Skrzaty recently said: “The Dragon ate the lamb, but the Krasnoludki today stroked him and now he won’t eat any more”. This sentence, in its simplicity, is to us a sentence-pearl. The Child has done something no algorithm will do — they have caught the essence of the legend and turned it into an active stance: help, feed, tame.
In this article we want to talk with you about why the youngest children learn about legends differently from the older ones. And why inviting a three-year-old into the world of Polish myths is not too early — quite the opposite, it is precisely at the right time.
Who the Skrzaty are
In our preschool we have three older groups with their own names. Skrzaty — the youngest, three- and four-year-olds. Elfy — the middle, four- and five-year-olds. Mędrki — the oldest, five- and six-year-olds. These names have meaning. Each group identifies with its name. Each has its privileges and its duties, suited to age.
The Skrzaty are the youngest in this set. Just farewelled from the nursery group or from full-time home with parents. For the first time in life in a permanent children’s group. For some, it is the first time in life they spend so many hours daily with other children. This is the group of the most intense emotions — joy, fear, pride, sadness — often all at once.
The Skrzaty are also the most open to the world. This sounds like a paradox (after all, older children know more!), but in pedagogy it is not. The Skrzaty do not yet have ingrained schemas. They do not know that there are no dragons. They do not know that fairy tales are for younger children. They do not know that some things are “for older”. Everything is new to them. And that newness is not negotiated, so the Skrzaty can approach each thing the way it seems to them.
From a parent’s point of view, the age of three is a fascinating period — and sometimes hard. Because the child is still small, easily tired, easily explosive, easily distracted. But at the same time they soak everything in with a power older children no longer have. This is the window in which the foundations are built — of imagination, emotionality, language, curiosity about the world. This window opens only once. And that is why our Skrzaty deserve a programme that is not for them “a simplified version” of what the Elfy and Mędrki do — but something of their own, fitted to this particular developmental moment.
Why legends
In our monthly programme for the Skrzaty, legends have a special place. Because a legend is a form of story that works in a three-year-old in a way no other content does.
First — a legend is a story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. Heroes. Action. A climax. A resolution. A three-year-old who is only just learning to understand that the world has continuity — that today was yesterday will be tomorrow — learns this best through stories. Every legend is a microstructure of time.
Second — a legend has magic in it. A dragon that breathes fire. A little shoe that leads to a treasure. Three brothers, each with a different virtue. These elements are entirely absurd to the adult mind — the adult knows there are no dragons. But for a three-year-old magic is not absurd. It is natural. Because the three-year-old does not yet have a separation between the real world and the world of imagination. The dragon is for them as real as the cat under the table. And in this developmental phase the Child uses magic to build their imagination.
Imagination is not a luxury. Imagination is the foundation of thinking. An adult who cannot imagine something they have never seen has a limited capacity for problem-solving. A scientist, a designer, a writer, an artist — every one of them rests on the imagination they built in childhood. And in childhood imagination is built precisely through legends, fairy tales, fantastic stories. Magic in a Child’s brain is not illusion — it is exercise of the highest cognitive capacity.
Third — a legend is emotional. The dragon is scary. The brave little cobbler is sympathetic. The dragon is defeated — that is the victory of good over evil. Every legend carries with it a simple emotional charge that the Child catches at once. And unlike adult fiction, where the moral is often nuanced, a legend gives the Child a clear moral anchor. The good wins. The evil loses. The clever defeats the strong. These anchors arrange themselves in the three-year-old’s head into the first moral structure. The first skeleton of ethics.
Fourth — a legend is local. The Wawel Dragon is not a character from an American film. He is our, Polish, specifically Cracovian dragon. He lives under a particular hill in a particular city, to which one can travel. Every Child who one day in life ends up in Krakow and sees the Dragon under Wawel will reach back to preschool. The Dragon at Wawel is for them not a tourist figure — it is a friend from childhood.
What we specifically do with the Skrzaty
Our approach to legends with the Skrzaty is very specific. We do not read books to them. We do not show them illustrations in a historical atlas. We do not explain “who was the king”. We do something completely different — we live the legend with them.
The first element — narrative in the right form. The teacher tells the Skrzaty the story of the Dragon. Not reads. Tells. In her own words. At the right pace. With gestures, with a change of voice, with shifts of accent. The Skrzaty sit in a circle and listen — and even if one of them is doing something on the side, they are still listening. Because a told story has an energy no reading has.
The second element — concrete props. A three-year-old does not grasp abstraction. They need something they can touch. So we have Wawel Castle cut out of cardboard. We have a plush dragon. We have a small treasure (usually with metal coins and fake beads) hidden under a plastic mountain. Every Skrzaty plays with these props. Each makes from them their own version of the story.
The third element — engaging the body. The Skrzaty are at the age when the body thinks. You cannot teach them by sitting for hours. You have to involve them physically. In our Wawel Dragon sessions — the Skrzaty become him. They make dragon mouths with their fingers. They walk on all fours, like a dragon. They roar like a dragon. Then they become the clever cobbler. They walk on tiptoe, quietly, imperceptibly, so the dragon does not hear. These are small dramatisations, short improvisations, but for a three-year-old they are key — because in them the body integrates what the head has heard.
The fourth element — artistic creation. After the story, after the dramatisation, the Skrzaty go to the art table. Here they draw, mould, paint their dragon. Each one different. Some dragons are green. Some pink. Some have eight legs. Some have flowers in their mouths instead of fire. Because the Skrzaty are already taming the Dragon. And now the Dragon is theirs.
The fifth element — repetitions. A three-year-old learns through repetitions. Telling the legend once is not enough. It has to be repeated. That is why we spread the Wawel Dragon across several weeks. Daily, even with a small accent — a song, a rhyme, a mention. The Skrzaty after two weeks know this legend by heart. And most importantly — they feel at home in it. The Dragon has stopped being a character from a story. He has become their shared possession.
What is being built in a three-year-old’s head
Here we want to talk with you about something that, for a teacher, is the most important. Because the legend, the dramatisation, the plasticine — these are tools. The goal is elsewhere. The goal is in what is happening in the three-year-old’s head.
The first thing — the safety of imagination. A three-year-old lives in a world in which anything can be. Tables can be alive. Plush toys can speak. Under the bed there may be monsters. This world is natural to them — and at the same time sometimes a little terrifying. Because there is not yet certainty in it that some things are certain.
A legend gives the Child the tool they need — a way to tame imagination. The Wawel Dragon is dangerous. But the story of the Dragon has a resolution. The Dragon is defeated. The cleverer one outwits him. The world that was dangerous is calm again. A three-year-old who experiences this narrative many times learns an important psychological mechanism: dangerous things have solutions. Fear can be overcome. The world — though full of surprises — eventually returns to balance.
This is the foundation on which, in five years, a teenager’s psychological resilience will be built. And in twenty — the courage of the adult to take life risks.
The second thing — empathy towards the imagined. The Dragon is a character. But the Skrzaty treat him as real. They stroke him. They feed him. They feel sorry he ate the lamb. These are the first exercises of empathy — and, paradoxically, they are easier to practise towards the imagined than towards the real. Because the imagined is under the Child’s control. A real other person is sometimes unpredictable, sometimes competitive, sometimes painful. Towards the Dragon it is easier for the Skrzaty to train the core of empathy — to later transfer that competence onto people.
The third thing — cultural belonging. Every Polish child, regardless of region, at some point in life gets to know the Wawel Dragon. He is one of our national myths. A three-year-old who knows the Dragon already has a first piece of Polish identity in them. After years, when they get to know other legends — King Popiel, the lords of Kruszwica, Wanda by the Vistula — they will all arrange themselves into a map. And on that map the Child will have their place. As a Pole. As an heir to culture. As someone to whom these stories belong.
It sounds grand, but in pedagogy this is not an empty word. Cultural identity in a person’s head is built from the earliest years. And it is built from specifics — figures, places, stories. The Wawel Dragon is one such specific. And that is why with the Skrzaty we do not skip him.
Why we do not wait for older groups
A frequent question from Parents: “isn’t it too early for a three-year-old?” We understand the question. Because the adult looks at a legend and sees concepts (“king”, “knight”, “dragon”) that probably exceed the three-year-old’s vocabulary. And thinks — perhaps better to wait.
In our view — no. Because the three-year-old does not need to understand the words to live the legend. The three-year-old lives it intuitively, emotionally, physically. They do not know who a “king” is — but they understand that someone is important and everyone listens to him. They do not know what a “coat of arms” is — but they understand that this is a sign by which one recognises a team. They cannot say “brave little cobbler” — but they will jump into the cobbler’s shoes the moment the teacher starts the right dramatisation.
What is more — it is precisely the three-year-old who will benefit most from legends. Because their brain is most open to them. The five-year-old already starts asking: “are dragons real?” The six-year-old already understands the difference between fiction and reality. The three-year-old does not yet ask. The three-year-old is simply in this legend. And that is exactly why for them this legend stays forever — in the brain, on a level the adult mind no longer reaches.
Once the father of one of our former Skrzaty wrote us a letter in which he told a story. His son, now thirteen, was riding with him on his first school trip to Krakow. He stood under Wawel, looking at the metal dragon that breathes fire every few minutes. And he said to his father: “I dreamed of this Dragon when I was little. I remember him. It is strange”. The father asked: “where do you remember from?”. The boy thought for a moment. “I think from preschool” — he said. “The Skrzaty became friends with the Dragon”. He was quoting words he himself did not know he remembered. After ten years.
That is the power of a legend. That is the strength of the first contact at the age of three. Nothing the adult can later substitute.
What a Parent can do at home
The first practice — evening stories. Please tell the Child Polish legends. Not only the Wawel Dragon — there is a whole map: Wanda by the Vistula, King Popiel and the mice, the lords of Kruszwica, the Warsaw Mermaid, the Cracow trumpet. Each of these stories gives the Child one piece of Polish identity. Please tell them from the third year. Please repeat them. Please build from these stories our inner calendar.
The second practice — thematic excursions. A Child who knows the legend of the Dragon wants to see the Dragon. Please plan a trip. Not far — Warsaw to Krakow is a few hours by train. The value of this experience for a three-year-old is immeasurable. To stand in front of Wawel, to listen to the father’s story, to see the Dragon — and all this will stay with them for years.
The third practice — your own dramatisations. At home you can play out legends. The kitchen is Wawel. The chair is the king’s throne. The plush bear is the ram the dragon is about to eat. The Child plays the cobbler. You play the dragon. Five minutes of such play builds in the Child more than an hour of animated films.
The fourth practice — combining with literature. On the Polish market there are many good books with legends for the youngest. Please choose one or two and read them systematically. We recommend those with artistic illustrations, not garish ones. The value of illustrations is a separate topic — a Child who from the third year looks at good drawings has, for life, a trained eye.
What this is all for
Because our Skrzaty finish this month with something no one taught them outright. With knowledge that there is a city called Krakow. That there is a hill on which a castle stands. That under the castle there is a cave. That in the cave a Dragon lived. That the Dragon was defeated by a brave cobbler. That the Dragon today is no longer dangerous — because all the Krasnoludki love him.
This is knowledge. But it is also something more — it is the feeling that the world is full of stories, that stories are remembered, that one can become friends with them. This is a stance towards cultural heritage that the Child begins to build at the age of three.
And one more thing — this is self-confidence. The Skrzaty who “know” the Wawel Dragon walk with this into adult life as with an achievement. With the first great fact they have acquired. “I know this.” This first fact is more valuable than ten computer games. Because it has opened a door. And behind that door, in the Child’s head, is all of Poland. All of culture. All of history. Waiting only for the Child, ready and confident, to step further in.
Because learning through play is what the Krasnoludki love most. And getting to know Polish legends is one of the most beautiful forms of that play. Full of magic. Full of adventure. And leaving in the Child’s brain such traces no other type of activity will ever leave. For life. Bravo, brave Skrzaty.