This year the first Christmas project day for the eight-year high school class took place also. Altogether, we welcomed an incredible 494 children at the gallery.

For this reason as well, we try to come up with a new theme and content for the creative workshop every year. For example, last year we focused our educational program on the exhibition The infinite world of fantasy by Pavel Čech, which took place over the Advent and Christmas holidays in the gallery on Masaryk Square. The story of the Devil was also the central theme of the creative workshop. The year before that, we focused on Advent characters. The children got to know the traveling figures (Saint Barbara, Nicholas, Ambrose and Lucia) who were part of the Advent events in the past. The illustrations of the characters were created for us by the well-known illustrator Veronika Vlková, which gave the program another artistically creative dimension.

This year we focused on the theme of angels, who appear not only in the story of the birth of Jesus, but also in classic carols and Christmas songs. We played those for the children, so they could sing along. Angels called seraphim had a special place here. Children became familiar with them not only through songs, but also in visual representations over the centuries. The children created prints of seraphs using moistened colored tissue paper, which they folded onto an A4 background. After that, we retold together the biblical story about the birth of Jesus and then moved to the art studio. Here, the children decorated a candle using cutters and colored wax papers. We discovered that this activity was enjoyed not only by the children, but also by the teachers, who also joined in the creation. It makes us very happy when our workshops are enjoyed not only by children but also by adults.

We are already looking forward to next Christmas educational programs and we ourselves are curious about what the theme will be this time.

Pavlína Pitrová, December 2023

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