Hygge Case Study: 'The fire in my belly has returned!'

I registered as a childminder in 2008 after the birth of my second daughter.  At this time, my first daughter was 17 years old and I had worked full time in an office from her being 9 weeks old. As you can imagine I felt like I had missed out on so much, so with my second daughter, I did not want to miss anything this time around.  I’d worked in an office for over 20 years and I always knew I was on the wrong career path, however, having a mortgage and bills to pay, together with earning a good salary, I felt that there was no other alternative.  Having my second daughter changed all this, and the thought of moving away from office admin to more caring and nurturing career which I had always craved, (and being at home with my baby daughter) was an exciting opportunity I could not miss.

Childminding is a career I have grown to love over the years. I must admit, initially I did wonder whether it was for me, it was such a different role to what I was used to, I felt isolated and it was a huge learning curve, but I eventually grew to love the job and cannot imagine doing anything else now. 

Over the last few years I have developed an interest in Hygge, and reading ‘A Cosy Life’ by Pia Edberg ignited my curiosity further.  The concept of finding the joy in simple things such getting out in nature or lighting a candle and curling up with a book, really appealed to me.  I started to incorporate hygge into my personal life by slowing down a little and doing simple things that made me feel good.  I also started practising yoga every day which has been a game changer for me.  I felt that I had turned a corner in my personal life and I was on a new path that I really enjoyed.  Although I was finding my way in my personal and home life, I felt that I was loosing my way a little with childminding, I still enjoyed it but something just didn’t feel right, I wasn’t as enthusiastic and the fire in my belly had dimmed a little.  I pondered with the idea of maybe starting an Early Years Degree but it didn’t sit right with me, I wanted to do something practical that would make an impact on my setting and the children in my care.  I began researching and reading about different learning approaches Reggio, Montessori and Froebel.  The Reggio way of learning was the one that I kept getting drawn to over and over, one of my inspirations is Carlene Cox-Newton of Carlene’s Cubbyhouse whose setting is very Reggio inspired.  As well as following Carlene, I began watching YouTube videos and reading Fairy Dust Teaching blog and other articles.  It felt right and I did feel that this was the path I wanted to be on. I began searching for Reggio inspired courses and this was when I stumbled across Hygge in the Early Years, I could not believe my luck! It sounded perfect and after doing a couple of ‘taster’ short courses I decided I really wanted to become an Hygge in Early Years accredited setting, at last I found the piece of the puzzle, and I began my Hygge journey in the Early Years.

To me, one of the most important aspects of my work is the wellbeing of the children and the feel of my setting.  You can have an all singing and dancing setting, with the most beautiful resources, but if the person who looks after those children does so without a passionate, warm heart and the children feel uncomfortable and unhappy, it means nothing.  To me, children need a warm, loving, relationship with their childminder, so they can grow with confidence and gain a positive sense of themselves.  The course has helped me to focus on this, before I started Hygge in the Early Years, I never really had a vision as such, I knew what was important but I never really thought about it.  I kept my written vision simple, I did not want anything too wordy and kept to what is important to me.  I believe if children are happy and content the learning happens regardless.

My Vision

A calm, happy place where children are given the freedom to learn, treated with respect and where they are allowed to truly be themselves.  Where they leave to continue on their life journey with confidence in themselves, taking many fond memories with them.

Working from home has its benefits with regard to Hygge as it’s relatively easy to make your setting as comfortable and calm as possible.  I have incorporated more plants, candles, fairy lights, we have rugs and cushions that we sit on to read books and play and we have throws that we sometimes put over our legs to keep us cosy, especially when it’s cold outdoors.  I have an incense burner that I use every morning when I do yoga, I never put the burner on when I am working due to the smoke, but as I have used it earlier, the calming scent of the burner lingers in my home, and many of my parents have commented on how lovely and calm my house feels.  I do, however, use an atomiser with calming lavender essential oil whilst I am working.  I have played relaxing background music for a while now, but I was inspired by the one of the webinars where they used nature as a backdrop to one of their rooms. I searched YouTube and found some relaxing music videos with beautiful changing nature scenes or fish swimming in coral reefs and I put that on my TV, it’s so relaxing and calming and I really do think the children get a lot from this.

When I set up my childminding business, I was really keen for it to be family orientated.  As well as looking after children, I wanted parents to feel part of it as well, like a family.  One idea I got from the course was having photos of children’s family in my setting, I was unsure how I was going to do this with it being my home as well, but I got an ingenious idea from another childminder.  A scarf holder!  I had various photos printed of the children’s family and pegged them up onto the scarf holder.  As it has a hook to hang it up, it’s perfect as I can move it around and when I am working , I hang it on an over door hook in the hall so parents can see the photo’s as well as the children.  Everyone loves this idea and they really enjoy looking at them, I do think this makes them feel like they are part of my setting as well as their children.  I have always had photos of the children in up my setting but I was really inspired by Sunflower Nursery School showing the image of the child.  I now have A4 laminated photos of the children in my setting with their name and words that describe them.  One child I have, I described her as a Thinker, Capable, Creative, Caring and Sensitive and also Loves Dressing Up.  Her mum absolutely loved this and said that I know her child so well and it also described her to a tee as well which I thought was lovely! 

Image of the child

One thing I have also incorporated into my setting is displaying children’s work. This again, I found difficult due to it being my home and not having a specific area for my childminding, so again I use a scarf holder, and peg works of art onto it and hang it up.  I’ve started to mount artwork onto black card to frame it and also annotate it with the voice of the child, such as ‘Orange! I made a picture, it’s fun!’ by XXX.  This is also something I am going to start with photographs, make notes of what the children say whilst they are doing an activity, take a photo and then put the photo up with the comment onto it.  One thing that Carlene Cox-Newton said on her video which I love is …

‘Gather the knowledge, then take that knowledge and turn it into your environment, turn it into your service and make it all about the children’

Children’s artwork

Since starting the course I have become more mindful with regard to interactions with children, being present, making connections, listening, responding, taking a step back and observing.  This is something I am working on , I have always felt that I need to ‘fill in the silent gaps’, continually teaching them, talking and interacting with them etc and doing this course has made me a lot more observant of myself and how I respond.  Taking a step back and slowing down, allowing children to take control of their learning is another thing I have taken from this course.  I loved Helle Heckmann’s comment on the conference .. ‘it takes time to grow’. 

I’m a big believer is ‘working with what you have’.  There are some wonderful wooden resources (Grimms for example) out there that are just beautiful, I do find some of them extremely expensive though and I just can’t justify spending that much on a resource.  I do, however, have many other wooden and authentic resources along with lots of loose parts.  For many years now, I have been drawn to charity shops to find treasures.  I’ve been amazed how things I’ve thought about having have just turned up (maybe that’s just being mindful for you!) and there is nothing better than the buzz of finding some wonderful treasure that isn’t that expensive.  I’ve still got plenty plastic in my setting, I’ve not bought plastic for many years and these resources are mainly from when my own children were small. Happyland, Duplo, Magna Tiles, Sticklebricks, Cash till, Mr Potato Head, Dolls etc.  I don’t believe in getting rid of all your plastic, we are all different and unique, some want to rid of all their plastic and have solely wood and authentic resources which is fine, I would rather work with what feels right to me and the children in my setting and I know that they love the duplo, the happyland, the cash till etc so if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it..  a while ago I wrote the following on my facebook page which explains a little about how I feel:

Mr Potato Head and what a great little toy, it helps with language, eyes, nose, ears etc, positional language above, top, side, under and also the use of fiddly motor skills and above all, they really enjoy playing with it. Mr Potato Head is one of my many plastic toys, I know plastic doesn’t seem like the ‘done thing’ these days and wood is the way to go and there are some beautiful wooden resources around at the minute. I do love wood, the look, the feel, the smell, the quality and believe me I have lots of wooden resources. I also have built up a collection of loose parts over the years and not to forget the wonderful authentic resources I’ve picked up from charity shops, but I also have many plastic toys ... mainly from when my own children were younger and I ain’t getting rid or replacing them because, you know what, the children actually like playing with them. Recently I had a bit of a revelation, I was in Aldi and they were selling the wooden toys and I spotted a wooden till, so I popped one in the trolley. On the way round, I kept looking at the till sat in my trolley and I got to thinking about the pink plastic till I already had, the one that bleeps when you press the digits, the one that has a little microphone and a LCD display, the one that makes those ‘real till’ noises, the till that gets played with all the time, and I thought, you know what, if the children had a choice they would probably still want to play with the plastic one over the wooden one .. so back on the shelf it went. It just got me thinking about whether we think too much about what ‘looks nice’ or what is the ‘in thing' compared to what the children enjoy playing with, afterall they are the centre of what we do. I read so many posts about people wanting to replace all plastic with wood; it’s a balance, if the children like the plastic stack and roll toy and play with it, keep it, it really doesn’t matter, it’s about the children and what they like to play with, what interests them, what fires their imagination, what fosters their creativity. So ... the happyland, duplo, magna tiles, mr potato head, the till, the microwave, the stacking cups etc .. and all the other plastic toys that the children like playing with can stay a bit longer for me.

Before

After

As you can see, I removed the bright coloured floor tiles to reveal the wooden oak flooring underneath and replaced the tiles with a neutral soft rug, I added a plant and changed the colourful bunting for something more neutral.  I also added a small wooden rocking chair that was mine as a child.  Just very little change really but it has made an impact on the look of my setting.

I’ve recently purchased Sally Haughey’s new book, Wonder Art.  I really love doing process art with the children and allowing them to just create without an end product in mind.  Here is an example of process art and following the child’s interests that we did a couple of weeks ago:

CHALK CRUSHING ... this week we did some chalk crushing with a view to mixing with water and making chalk paint, However, the paint idea went right out of the window as the children just got so engrossed with the crushing and mixing, making mixtures and potions. One little one just sat filling a tiny bottle with chalk powder, using her fine motor skills, another loved adding water and mixing and the little boy I mind just had a ball bashing the chalk to smithereens, it quite a task crushing chalk 💪This is a great example of process over product .. ok I had this vision of wonderful pictures made with textured paint they had made themselves but it didn’t go that way, and that’s all good here as they were playing, having fun and learning in their own little way 👍

Process art by a 3 year old.  Parents loved this so much they framed it and gave it to grandparents for Xmas.

Getting outdoors and exploring nature is another aspect of the course I have enjoyed and we try to get outdoors as much as possible.  I find that the children absolutely love being outside and it just changes the whole dynamics of the day as well as their wellbeing. 

Dreamy summers day at the stream (isn’t this just beautiful, at a local park)

Since starting the course, I have started practising mindfulness and enjoying the simple things in life, I’ve started journaling and keeping a gratitude journal.  I really enjoyed the webinar from Gemma Sandwell of The Happiness Branch and one of my intentions is for the 5 Pillars of Happiness to be the forefront of my mind and to practice this every daily.  I practice yoga every morning and have been doing so for over a year now so that habit is pretty much ingrained in me!  Total game changer for me, absolutely love it.  I want to start practising meditation regularly and try to build this up and get into a daily habit (my 2020 mission).

My next steps for future development are to continue with being mindful of my interactions with the children, incorporate more process art into my setting and create a one shelf atelier inspired by Fairy Dust Teaching (work in progress at the moment!), to continue to observe the children and allow them to be the curriculum, follow their interests and build on their ideas.  I also want to develop my documentation, make learning more visible, I’ve just purchased and downloaded  Carlene Cox-Newton’s new ebook .. Perspectives in Programming .. Incorporating Children’s Voices into your Early Childhood Setting which I’m looking forward to reading and implementing into my setting. 

This course has really opened my mind, it’s made my think and see things differently, the fire in my belly has returned, I feel so motivated and I now know what is important to me, it’s helped me to gain more interest and passion and it’s set me further along the path to a Reggio inspired setting, thank you Kimberly xx