Games and various workshops, mostly held in museums throughout the national territory, will be some of the activities taking place this Saturday, April 26, in celebration of Children’s Day. This date was promoted by the Fundación Crecer Jugando in 2020 to give visibility to children who were confined for 42 days due to the pandemic.
April 26, 2020, marked the first day since the beginning of the pandemic that children were able to go out on the streets after 42 days of confinement. Therefore, in 2021, Fundación Crecer Jugando initiated the request for a day dedicated to the little ones, receiving support from over 1,900 public and private entities that have organized various children’s activities.
Among them, notable locations include the Prado Museum, Thyssen Museum, Valencia’s Oceanogràfic, as well as city councils across Spain such as Santander and Cádiz, and sports clubs like Leganés CF, Cádiz CF, and UniCaja Baloncesto.
This year, Fundación Crecer Jugando invites both children and adults to ‘imagine’ and mark April 26 on their calendars as a «special day.» «Why imagine? Imagining is associated with emotions, desires, and enjoyment. Always something positive. Imagining is an invitation to fulfill something we want to happen at some point: an afternoon at the park, a day of vacation, or playing all day,» they pointed out.
Among other activities, the Thyssen Museum will host workshops such as ‘Painting with three spots’ (one at 10:00 and another at 10:30), ‘White on white’ (at 12:00), and the final one ‘On vibration and resonance’ (at 16:30).
At the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, there will be a ‘Baby Art’ session on Saturday and Sunday, May 3 and 4, respectively, for babies aged 12 to 24 months. This activity will explore movement as an artistic medium, utilizing the entire body and its dynamic possibilities as a way to create. It will also host a family yoga session on Sunday, May 4, for children to learn how to relax and «better perceive their own bodies, while increasing their attention and perception of their surroundings.»
On another note, the Railway Museum of Madrid will celebrate a children’s musical theater with the theme ‘Who wants to be a railway worker?’, while the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid will perform the theatrical work ‘Andresillo and the dragon.’
Similarly, at Casa Botines Gaudí Museum (León), children will enjoy an adapted, playful, and interactive visit, followed by two handicraft activities in the museum’s classroom. In the same line, the Toy Museum of Catalonia proposes a family workshop to imagine and create with recycled materials and real tools.
Fundación Crecer Jugando aims to work towards the defense and promotion of one of the fundamental rights of children: the right to play. «Play is one of the most valuable and important activities for the overall development of children in all aspects: physical, mental, social, and intellectual,» they emphasized.
In 1954, the United Nations General Assembly recommended that a Universal Children’s Day be established in all countries and suggested that governments celebrate this day on a date they deemed appropriate. Thus, November 20 was designated for the commemoration of the signing of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in memory of all the child victims of the First World War.