The Ateneum Art Museum and the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper’s Lasten uutiset join forces to promote children’s education

This autumn, the My Ateneum programme will offer 100 classes of fifth and sixth graders around Finland the opportunity for two distance-learning museum visits with an Ateneum Art Museum guide. During the visits, the schoolchildren will explore the Ateneum Art Museum and its works, and they will also draw and learn to identify their own superpowers. The works of art are used to discuss different topics, such as the relationship between nature and people.

Participation in the programme is free for the schools. This is thanks to the collaboration between the Ateneum and the Lasten uutiset section of Helsingin Sanomat.

“Lasten uutiset wants to support children’s education and respond to children’s thirst for knowledge in an inspiring and understandable way. The My Ateneum programme nicely supports these goals, so the collaboration with the Ateneum immediately felt natural and right”, says the head of the Lasten uutiset editorial board, Fanny Fröman.

Helsingin Sanomat has been publishing the Kultainen Venla television award-winning Lasten uutiset since 2016 in a weekly news broadcast, in its newspaper, and on its own website at HS.fi/lastenuutiset. In 2020, Helsingin Sanomat also started publishing a home-delivered children’s newspaper.

Newspapers are part of the material package that is sent to each school class that has registered for the My Ateneum programme. In addition to newspapers, pens and papers, the package includes an ‘Art deck’, which the class can keep for use after the end of the programme. The deck contains 60 cards with images of works of art from the Finnish National Gallery collection. The deck offers tips for analysing art, and it is suitable for a wide range of educational purposes.

The My Ateneum project, which won the audience development act of the year award in 2022, was originally carried out from 2021 to 2022. The development project was funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. The project offered 400 school classes the opportunity for distance-learning museum visits with a museum guide.

“We are really happy that the My Ateneum programme is being continued, and we would like to thank the Lasten uutiset section of Helsingin Sanomat for a good collaboration. One of the main tasks of the Finnish National Gallery is to promote art education. This is precisely what the My Ateneum programme is doing, and to crown it all, it reaches across Finland”, says the head of public programmes at the Ateneum, Satu Itkonen.

The registration period for the My Ateneum programme for this autumn has ended. The first distance-learning museum visits started at the beginning of September.

“The registration list of 100 school classes was quickly filled. I believe this is proof that there is both a demand and a need for the programme, also in the future”, says Itkonen.