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I am a childminder in Gloucestershire and have been childmiding for nearly 19 years.

I used to enjoyed my work but it was starting to take it’s toll on me and my mental health.
So, I took a break in 2019 and started a baby massage business and an holistic therapy business. This made me take a step back and look at my own wellbeing. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long and I returned to childminding in 2020 where I took the knowledge of my holistic training and started my Hygge in the Early Years Accreditation.
Before I started the Accreditation my setting consisted of bright colours but still a dark room. It had lots of plastic ‘noisy’ toys and numerous posters around the roomPlastic labels were on boxes making it look cluttered and scruffy. We did go outside to play but only because I ‘felt’ we should!

Since working my way through the Accreditation (and my previous knowledge of holistic health) I look at my ‘work’ in a different way.

“It feels like home”

A member of staff said this as she walked through my classroom and I answered, “That’s exactly how I want it to feel”.

I started my Hygge journey about 5 years ago when working in a nursery classroom as part of a primary school.

Over the years I have witnessed many different types of classrooms. When I eventually became a teacher, I knew exactly how I wanted my classroom…. calm, simple, cosy, and happy!

I started the beginning of the year by asking for family photographs to display in our classroom. The children loved to chat about the photos, and it was a talking point for a number of weeks.

I have always been interested in child development, reading, and researching about different theorists. As an Early Years department, we have implemented lots of different ideas from lots of different theorists and cherry picked the ones that we feel best fit our children.

I currently work in a forest school and so the outside...

Guest Post: Sam Goldsworthy 

Since undertaking the Hygge accreditation we have really embraced the feeling of togetherness and cosiness. The one thing that struck a positive chord with us when reading about life in Denmark was the way they come together on a Friday afternoon to enjoy cake and celebrate the end of the week. We thought ‘wow’ we could do easily achieve this in our setting. So we originally planned to bake each Friday morning and come together in the afternoon to enjoy our bakes with a hot chocolate or a warm milk and reflect on the adventures that we have had together during the week.

Our Hygge Friday developed to include ‘voting'. So we would choose two recipes and ensure we had ingredients for both. We placed a picture with each bake with the wording underneath for the children to be able to read or visualise the choices depending on their age and stage of development. They would often ponder then would choose a bake and write their...

Do you use wooden crates in your play?

I have loved using wooden crates in my play now for quite a few years and really like the way they can create cosy little spaces to play and explore in or add a level of curiosity and intrigue to the environment. Crates are also very useful for creating flexible and movable storage areas within your early years provision. Perhaps as a good set of shelving for your book nook. 

I like to have a collection of different sized crates to support my work. These have been collected over the years from kind friends who have used them for their wedding, Ikea purchases, Facebook marketplace pick ups and also bought directly from Cosy Direct. 

I find them to be a wonderful open ended resource that can be used inside or outside. For example on a sunny day they can be used to set up a provocation in response to children's learning in the garden (you can find out more about setting up provocations here.) or perhaps use a few crates together to...

Working smarter instead of harder is a big part of looking after our wellness.

In Scandinavia it’s very rare to see people working late or even logging over -time as it can be seen as working in an inefficient way.

Learning how to prioritize is a crucial survival skill for getting through pressured times. It brings order to chaos, creates calmness and space, and reduces stress. I walk you through the whole goal setting process inside the Hygge journal.

Essentially think of three tasks you must complete to move you closer to your overall goals each day. These are your needle movers and must happen. Anything else can wait. When we work in this way it means we spend less time working on the day to day tasks that can bog us down.

What 3 things must you get done today?

Here at Sarah’s Little Stars, we love to bake.

The children love the independence that it brings to their morning or afternoon.

We bake so much that the children can often do most of the steps without asking for an adult’s help. 

Watching the children work as part of a team is one of my favourite parts of our week. Someone might say “me do eggs” and an older child might say “there’s 4 eggs xxxx, so we can we all have  a turn!” And the little one is then seen counting the eggs and shouting “Yes”- the excitement on their face is just priceless.

From time to time the children will  often give me or my assistant Claire a job todo, “can you clean this up Claire?”, “Sarah, is the oven on?”, “Claire can you help xxxx put the flour in whilst I’m stirring?”

They might not be the most exciting jobs in the kitchen that morning or afternoon but its just lovely that they want to involve...

Hygge case study by Philippa S

My practice before the accreditation:

Our classroom was light and spacious but due to the high ceilings and cold colours, prickly carpet and blue lino flooring it was lacking a homely welcoming feel to reflect our nurturing practise. The classroom I inherited was disorganised, chaotic and messy, lacking order and calmness, requiring an air of order enabling the children to feel calm and in control of their own learning.

The visions I’ve created in my work:

I have created a classroom exuberating a nurturing, peaceful but exciting and inspiring continuous provision-based room. I have thoughtfully planned each area of the classroom, with the children at the heart of my planning and practise.

This has included, but is not limited to:

• Reading: Working with colleagues to read and sort all of EY/KS1/2 reading books to match their phonetic teaching. Working closely with parents to build a partnership based upon trust and honesty –...

By Anna Webb

-My practice before the accreditation (What I needed help or guidance on)

-The vision I've created in my work

-The changes I've made to my personal life and practice

-The impact this has had on myself, the children and the setting. 

-Your next steps for future development.

Before I began the Hygge accreditation I felt we lacked direction and that we were all bringing something to the table but not being able to be consistent with the approaches, I wanted the Preschool to be relaxed and open ended and after having completed the Anna Epgrave in the moment training realised that using the child’s interests and building on this to create a more child cantered approach worked well with our cohort of children, however we still lacked direction, on signing up for the course I really hoped that this would support us with mental wellbeing, self-regulation, behaviour management and the links with the outside being that we are a Forest School setting.

I started...

TEACHER – HOME EDUCATION SETTING

After the birth of our son, I decided to leave my role as a junior teacher to be a full-time mum. Here began my wonderful journey into the world of early years - fascinating! It was during this time that I discovered the importance of open-ended play and the learning environment. Our home quickly transformed to provide beautiful spaces to play, explore and learn in this new way. Eager to learn more, I was led to the ‘Hygge in the Early Years Accreditation’. A fascination with the Danish lifestyle soon developed and both my husband and I began reading books and incorporating more hygge into our own lives. Based on this new-found knowledge, we decided to home educate our little boy, at least during his early years. The ‘Hygge in the Early Years Accreditation’ has been invaluable in helping me create a beautiful environment in which our son can explore and develop.

Below are some highlights of my journey.

BALANCE - I really...

Tidying up time can be one of the hardest parts of the day and can feel as though it goes on for ages with very little progress!  

Here are three thoughts to help you reflect on your practice:

• Use tidy time as a teaching time: if you’ve got 2 pencils off the floor and you find one more how many will you have altogether? 
• As an adult don’t tidy up! Support your children in tidying up through the interactions you make. If children see you tidying up then they may start to believe that they don’t need to put the effort in as someone will do it for them! This is a tricky thing as an adult to stop yourself doing but it’s worth it in the long run!  
• Transition points in the day are often the times when we see big feelings or what we might describe as more challenging times of the day. When I worked with children who needed support with managing their big feelings I found keeping an ABC record of their behaviour really useful. It helped me...