A certain Krasnoludek from our older group, six-year-old Antek, came home one Wednesday and said to his parents with full conviction: “in our Warsaw there was a mermaid. She guarded the fish. And that’s why people have her in the coat of arms. And then a brother and sister, Wars and Sawa, rescued her, so the city is named after them. But it’s not all that certain, because some say it was different”. The parents were amused. And impressed. Because Antek did not just retell two Warsaw legends — he told them the way an adult tells them: with distance, with doubts, with a sense that there is a whole landscape of interpretations.
That was the end of our October theme month about Warsaw. For four weeks in a row our preschool lived the capital — its legends, its coat of arms, its symbols, its history, its geography. In this article we want to tell you what it looked like, what we did in detail and — above all — what is built in the head of a five-year-old when, instead of one theme day, they get a whole month dedicated to their city.
A theme month — another step into depth
In our previous articles we wrote about a theme day and a theme week. A theme month is the next, even deeper level of the same idea. The point is not to do everything about one topic for thirty days in a row — that would be boring and counterproductive. The point is for one coherent motif to appear throughout the entire month, within the normal range of activities (rhythm, art, letter learning, gymnastics, meals), to which the child returns daily, and which gradually, very gradually, expands.
First week: we get the basics. “What city do you live in? What is its name? Which city is close to us?”. Second week: legends and history. Wars and Sawa, the mermaid, the Golden Duck. Third week: places and symbols. The Palace of Culture, the Old Town, the Vistula, Łazienki, the bugle call from St Mary’s church (in Warsaw too, by the way — a Mariacki church exists in Warsaw as well, although the most famous one is in Kraków). Fourth week: synthesis and finale day. Everything we learned comes together in one summarizing day. We make the city’s coat of arms, do puzzles, invent our own little stories.
Each week leaves a different layer in the child’s head. But the weeks reference one another, link, intertwine. With each successive week the child knows more, but also better understands how it all connects. This is exactly the kind of learning psychologists call spiral learning — returning to the same topic at an ever-deeper level. It is a far more effective way to build lasting knowledge than a one-off, intensive lesson.
October in Warsaw — what we actually did
We started the first week with the simplest question: “who among you was born in Warsaw? And who in another city? And who has ever been to another city?”. This was a sketch of the map — the child had to orient themselves to the fact that there are other cities, that there are other people, that Warsaw is one of many. Some Krasnoludki had no idea about this. After this first conversation they already knew that there was Łódź, Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław, Lublin — because other children mentioned these cities, telling where their grandparents had been born.
The second week was the legends. First Wars and Sawa — the story of the mermaid who was rescued by a brother and sister, and how the city took its name from theirs. Miss Justyna told it with a children’s book in her hand, showing the illustrations. After the story the Krasnoludki drew their own mermaids, each a different one. Some made hers a sword and a shield (referencing the Warsaw coat of arms). Others gave her long hair and a beautiful tail. All the drawings were then hung on the wall and for a week the children paused at them, looking at one another’s, debating whose mermaid was the most mermaid-like.
After Wars and Sawa came the Golden Duck. This legend, much less well known, is rarely told — but in our preschool it is one of the favourites. The Golden Duck lives in the dungeons under the Ostrogski Palace on Tamka, near Powiśle. She gives a treasure to whoever passes the test: he gets a hundred ducats, but he must spend them only on himself, in the course of one day, without sharing with anyone. The young man who tried did not last — he met a beggar in the street, gave him one ducat. And the whole treasure vanished.
This legend is extraordinarily instructive for a five-year-old. It can be told ten times and each time something new is found in it. “Why didn’t the boy hold out?”. “Was he right to give the beggar money?”. “Is the Golden Duck cruel?”. The children debate among themselves. They draw their own conclusions. From such conversations the first, child-sized version of ethics is built — reflection on what is good, what is bad, what is worth doing in life.
The third week was geography. A map of Warsaw on the floor (very simple, the outline of the city, the main districts). The child could walk on it, find their own district, find the districts of their grandparents, of their cousins. We showed photos: the Palace of Culture (everyone knows), the Old Town (most know), Łazienki (half know), the Świętokrzyski Bridge (only a few Krasnoludki knew). We looked at each photograph for a long time, talked about it, sometimes played a recording of the sounds of the place.
The fourth week was synthesis. Each Krasnoludek received a worksheet — Warsaw’s coat of arms, to colour in and cut out. We put together puzzles with Warsaw’s symbols (these puzzles were prepared by Miss Magda, the printer and laminator did their part). We listened to the bugle call from St Mary’s church (the Kraków one, in this case, but we also talked about Warsaw’s churches). At the end of the week, each Krasnoludek told one thing they had remembered about Warsaw. Some stories were short. Some — like Antek’s — were complex and full of nuance.
What is built in the head of a five-year-old
The first and most important layer is local identity. A five-year-old is just starting to build their answer to the question “who am I”. The preschool years are the time when these answers are still in the phase of growing roots. “I am from Warsaw”. “This is my city”. “My friends from preschool live here”. “My family has been living here for two generations”. These are sentences that are obvious to an adult, but for a five-year-old they are still in formation. A month in which the preschool consistently helps build this identity is one of the most important months in their entire preschool life.
The second layer is culture. Warsaw’s legends are not entertainment — they are a frame in which the child builds their first version of Polish culture. The mermaid with the sword, Wars and Sawa, the Golden Duck. Each of these names, each of these stories, each of these images is an atom of cultural DNA. From such atoms, an adult sense of being rooted is later built. Not patriotism in a political sense — but a deep, intuitive sense that “this is my home”.
The third layer is the map. A five-year-old who, for four weeks, looks daily at the outline of Warsaw, at some point starts to understand that their home, their preschool, their garden are points on a larger whole. That Warsaw is not “everywhere”, but in a specific place. That beyond Warsaw there are other cities. That there is a road that leads to them. This is the foundation of all later geographical skills — but also the foundation of the ability to think abstractly about space.
The fourth layer is inner-family heritage. After our Warsaw month, most Krasnoludki begin to ask their grandparents at home where they were born, when they came to Warsaw, why, what they did here, what the city looked like in the old days. These are questions a five-year-old would not ask on their own — but after systematic work in preschool they start asking them spontaneously. And the family gets a pretext to start telling stories about itself. The grandparents come alive. Family albums, old photos, stories appear. From such conversations the child takes away an understanding that they are part of a continuous story — which began long before their birth and will continue long after. This is, in short, one of the most important existential lessons in life.
Why a whole month, and not a week or a day
One could ask: since we have already done theme days and theme weeks, why introduce a month? The answer is: for depth. For reflection. For knowledge to settle slowly into deeper layers of memory.
A five-year-old who hears about Wars and Sawa in one day will remember the legend superficially. A five-year-old who, throughout four weeks, returns daily to the same legend in different contexts (illustration, drawing, discussion, repeated listening, “who is who” game), remembers it deeply. What is more — they build their own interpretation. They start to have opinions. They start to ask. They start to link this story with others. This is a completely different quality of understanding.
A theme month is also an opportunity for trips. In October we took the older groups to Łazienki (to the Palace on the Water and the Chopin monument), and the oldest Krasnoludki to the Copernicus Science Centre (which, strictly speaking, is not “a Warsaw legend”, but is one of the prides of the capital). These trips, combined with a theme month about Warsaw, give the child a concrete, physical realization of what they are learning at preschool. “And this is THE Palace Miss Magda was talking about!”. This moment of closure is extraordinarily satisfying for a five-year-old.
What a parent can do at home — Warsaw with the child
Regional education is one of those areas where the parent has extraordinarily great possibilities — and one of those we most often neglect. A few ideas:
— Walk around Warsaw regularly. The Old Town. Krakowskie Przedmieście. The Vistula boulevards. Łazienki. Saxon Garden. Castle Square. The Vistulan riverside (from a viewpoint). Each of these places has its own history, its own atmosphere, its own associations. The more of them the child sees physically, the more strongly they take root in the city.
— Read Warsaw legends together. Children’s books about Wars and Sawa, the mermaid, the Golden Duck are easily available in bookshops. Well illustrated, short. After reading, it is always worth showing the child the place mentioned — the Ostrogski Palace on Tamka, the Old Town Square, the Mermaid monument by the Vistula.
— Show the child Warsaw from different perspectives. From the terrace of the Palace of Culture (most spectacular). From the Świętokrzyski Bridge. From the other side of the Vistula. From the tower of St Anne’s church on Krakowskie Przedmieście (open to tourists). Each of these perspectives shows the city differently.
— Tell the child about your own childhood in Warsaw. Where you went to school. Where you played. What were your favourite places. What you liked to eat. These personal stories are far more fascinating to the child than book legends — because they concern their own family.
— Go to the Museum of Warsaw. Especially to the “Things of Warsaw” department — full of hats, clocks, dolls, everyday items from the past. For a child this is a window into time. “My great-grandmother could have walked in this hat” — says the five-year-old open-mouthed. That moment, too, stays for years.
— Remember seasonality. Warsaw in spring is a different image than Warsaw in winter. Show the child the same place at different times of year — Łazienki in full May bloom, Łazienki in October yellow, Łazienki in February snow, Łazienki in November mist. From such repetitions the child builds a strong, seasonal sense of the city.
November is already calling — Pyrandia
The Warsaw month ended in October. Tuptuś, the little dwarf-guide who led the Krasnoludki throughout October, announced at the final meeting that in November he was taking us to Pyrandia — an imagined land where the potato (pyra) rules, where everyone speaks Greater Poland dialect, where pyzy dumplings are baked and where we meet the Poznań dwarves. The Krasnoludki rejoiced, because they know this means new stories, new music, new cuisine, new legends.
Because regional education does not end with one’s own city. One has to go further too — to Greater Poland, to Lesser Poland, to Kashubia, to Mazury, to Subcarpathia. Each of these places has its own distinct culture, its own legends, its own tastes. Poland is not one and uniform — Poland is a mosaic. A five-year-old who begins to understand this through successive monthly expeditions into imagined-but-real lands grows up into an adult who has in their head a much wider and deeper Poland than most of their peers.
And it all begins with the question we asked in the first week of October: “and what city do YOU live in?”.