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Member Case Study by Vania Almeida

The Hygge in the Early Years Accreditation has been a journey of personal growth and enrichment in my life-long learner journey. My name is Vania Almeida and I heard about hygge and KSEY’s work last year in a webinar when Vicky Murray, a childminder in England, presented the benefits of using the approach in her setting. I searched about it and I decided to join the accreditation in January 2020. I have been completing different trainings since I started my career in Early Years seven years ago, although I work in Education for nearly 15 years. The pandemic context led me to invest a lot in my self-development. I became first time manager last year and my intention was for the accreditation to help me create a hygge environment in a setting that was everything but hygge – very urban, colourful, depressive and empty. I had only two children enrolled and one staff member. I will share very few photos from this setting but I feel most of the work happened...

What does a purposeful learning environment look and feel like for the under 2’s?

Your environment for this age range needs to be very different than that offered for a 3-4 year old.

Its about setting up cosy nooks with a basket of books and hand puppets, treasury baskets to explore holistic play, a little space that represents home life to them with dramatic play equipment (dolls, cooking utensils, shopping baskets, phones etc), different platforms to work on at varying heights that allow them to squat, stand and explore things like loose parts/ twisting/ manipulating objects on a larger scale. Opportunities to explore light, dark, shadow, projection. Magnatiles and other construction are wonderful to include too! Consider sensory play too; perhaps a tuff tray on the floor. A space to rest with calming fairy lights in jars or a projector.

There is also the need for outdoor play for this age range! Check out this post here for more information here on getting babies outside. 

Most i...

Before I started my Hygge training I had just left my job at a creche, the creche was in a shopping centre with lots of bright lights, no outdoor space or natural lighting, everything was brightly coloured and very over whelming, there was no structure to the day and the children would often get bored. I was restricted as to what I could do to change any of this due to company policies and approach. I felt deflated, unmotivated, and just did not enjoy my job, I was always working, missing my family. If I was at home, I was always on call to help when needed. 

I got a new job as Deputy Manager of a brand-new nursery that was being built at Warner Bro’s studios serving families in the TV and Film industry. It was quite different from anything I had ever done before; I had to do some research and re-find my passion for early years. During this time whilst doing my research I discovered Hygge and instantly it interested me, there are so many elements that just make sense to me, I absol...