Hygge in KS1

I have been a Year one teacher for many years now and we have always followed the routine of continuous provision in the first term to smooth the transition from Reception to Key Stage one and then moving to a more formal method for the rest of the year in preparation for Year 2. We had the same issues each year that some children were ready for that transition whilst others weren’t. They missed the outdoor area from EYFS and the freedom to choose and follow their own learning. Add on top of that the missed opportunities the children have had the last couple of years due to covid and we realised that something needed to change.

I have been interested in hygge for a while from a personal point on view in terms of my home and life so when I discovered hygge in the early years it felt like the natural transition for me. I started listening to the podcasts and at the start of lockdown watched the daily Instagram lives whilst on maternity leave. I returned from maternity leave into school in September 2020 and decided that we needed to change what we were doing. As always we began with continuous provision in the first term. At this point we introduced the Wanderlust nature study into our curriculum. We took a theme a week and set up provocations and activities around this theme. We used our forest school leads expertise to guide us with some activities to complete in the week and also for resources. We started to collect natural loose parts to include in our continuous provision and introduced more wild maths activities using nature loose parts as manipulatives. The children enjoyed being outdoors and were becoming more knowledgeable about looking after nature, identifying trees and plants in our school environment, and growing. We wanted to embrace the feeling of hygge by baking with the children each week and then sharing/tasting what we had made together and having that shared experience. We scheduled these sessions for Friday afternoons to end the week with the feeling of togetherness. As we were unable to use the school hall for PE lessons due to covid, we began to introduce yoga sessions into our week, some of these linked to our nature theme. We also introduced meditation to the children and used the singing bowl for moments of calm.

We documented our nature study learning in our class floor book. We found that the children were linking what we had learnt during nature study into our science topics and relating it to stories we were reading. We didn’t have the funds to purchase books etc so we ordered books recommended in the nature study from our local education library. The children loved the mix of stories and factual books based on different themes. We also introduced a nature table and wall where we could display relevant vocabulary and pictures to support our learning. The children added items they found outside or brought in from home to our nature table.

The next thing we looked at was our classroom environment. We had a classroom with bright yellow walls and primary coloured tables and chairs. The classroom has been repainted to create a more natural, calming feel and we have rearranged the classroom to create a cosy reading area complete with soft furnishings and fairy lights. We started backing our display boards in a neutral, brown paper and adding faux foliage and fairy lights around our displays. We also hung some large sticks from the ceiling wrapped in faux foliage and lights. We tried to turn off the overhead lights when possible and use the fairy lights and natural light instead. We added plants to our nature table and also encouraged the children to care for these. We sorted out all of our resources and new, more natural resources were purchased to enable us to provide continuous provision all year. The children can easily access their own resources for learning. We developed the outdoor area as a class and renovated a small garden area outside our classroom to become an outdoor small world area. Tuff trays and an outdoor den/stage area was purchased along with maths and literacy sheds which are being shared between EYFS and Key Stage 1. The outdoor area is now available to Year 1 children on a daily basis with some areas and resources shared with EYFS. We are continuing to work on this project and it is still a work in progress and we are continually looking at how we can improve our environment and resources.

Before photos

After photos

Outdoor area

The school environment has been changed to be more hygge. Carpets have been fitted in the corridors and the corridors have been repainted to a more neutral colour. Soft furnishings and reading nooks have been created. The children now wear slippers when they are inside. We also have an area on our school website that describes our vision of hygge in our school.

To discover more on hygge click here