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“Strive to make everyday the best day of your life, because there is no good reason not to.” Hal Elrod

Autumn Leaves and Conkers Please - Conker Activities

Oct 13, 2024

Autumn Leaves and Conkers Please - Conker Activities from Gemma's Childminding, a Hygge Accredited setting.

'We love to incorporate natural, eco-friendly and recycled products into our play. Our activities are very much child-led these days rather than adult-initiated. I find that being around nature whether this is outdoors or bringing nature indoors really supports the children's learning and wellbeing.

I've noticed some real changes in the children since adapting to a more 'Hygge' based environment and embracing a slow pedagogy.

Some snapshots of how we have enjoyed incorporating conkers into our everyday play this season.'

Woodland Theme Autumn Display

We set up a small display of interest for the children to explore. Lots of natural resources including conkers, pinecones and leaves. We incorporated various lights and some magnifying boxes for them to identify the different textures and colours up close.

They especially loved feeding the conkers to the woodland animals.

Pl...

Should learning be beautiful?

Apr 23, 2024

I have heard people say:

'Children don't need beautiful set ups in their play. This has only been created for the adult.'

My personal belief here is that like most things in life we need balance.

We need reflection.

We must go back to the child.

We can create invitations to play that pay great attention to detail because we are responding to an emerging interest and we want to captivate the child's awe and wonder even more. We want them to be excited about the possibilities of deepening this learning or fascination so we present it to them in an open ended and irresistible way.

I also know that amazing learning happens when things are a bit more rustic and even messy! Exploring the patterns the numicon plates leave in the shaving foam, the changes to the clay when it's been left outside in the rain or the cardboard box that's been transformed into Elsa's frozen castle with little more than the imagination.

Children and their learning needs can be neglected when we lose sig

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Creating a Hygge Staffroom

Jun 11, 2019

We spend long periods of our days at work and during our downtime in the day it’s important that we have a space to relax, come together and recharge our batteries.

Here are my top tips on how you can bring that hygge feeling into your staffroom.

Consider seating; offering sofas to sit on that are a bit more comfy
A dining table to invite staff to come together over lunch
Lovely homely place mats
Plants
Photos in frames of things you’ve done together as a team (Parties, local walks, summer bbqs)
Soft warm lighting from lamps
Flowers in a vase on the table
A selection of teas and coffees
Fruit basket
Soft furnishings; cushions, throws
Lending library of books
Homely accessories- wicker hearts
Room spray
Declutter the space and organise
Fairy lights
Garlands (e.g felted leaves)
Calming colours whites and greys mixed in with some warmer yellows.
Consider how you migh...

Be More Optimistic

Jun 11, 2019

Feeling more optimistic has a link to our level of positivity and happiness. When we feel more optimistic we approach a task with increased confidence and strength that it will go well. Yet it's really easy to get stuck in a cycle of self-doubt when it comes to things going wrong.

Identify Negativity

First identify what it is your feeling negative about. Make a list of all the solutions you can think of to solving the problem you have. Moving towards positivity and hope. Then commit yourself to taking one of these actions next time you feel this way.

For me my house sale has recently fallen though. My initial thought was “Oh no this is terrible what are we going to do now. Then I turned the situation around and thought well at least now we have more time to find our dream home (as we were about to move in with relatives), I'm saving money (as our next house will be bigger and have a more expensive mortgage) and lastly, I'm feeling tired so at least I do...