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Lavender is a versatile herb with numerous properties beneficial to health, wellness, and everyday life. Its calming aroma, therapeutic benefits, culinary uses, and role in personal care and household products make it a valuable and widely appreciated plant.

Lavender can be grown from seed and is a great sensory ingredient to explore. It attracts pollinators like bees and butterflies, making it a beneficial plant for your garden. Add it to playdough, potions, make lavender perfume or dry it and add sachets to your room indoors to create a beautiful calming scent. Lavender oil has antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, making it useful for treating minor burns, insect bites, and skin irritations. You can also use it in cooking and natural cleaning products. Lavender has a calming effect, relaxing you, aiding sleep and reducing stress and anxiety.

A time of coming together with a slower approach

Midsummer in Sweden

Midsummer comes on the 21st June and this is a time when it feels as though the sun never sets. In fact in northern parts of Scandinavia it doesn't! 

In the 1500's this time of year was seen as a magical time where fertility levels were high. This was celebrated by the Swedes decorating the outside of their homes and farms with green foliage.

As we moved into the industrial period mill workers would come together at Midsummer for a wonderful feast of pickled herring.

More recent traditions have seen the making of floral crowns from the wildflowers and maypole dancing in the local area. 

On Midsummer Day in Sweden many of these traditions remain. It's also very much a time of coming together with family and friends over delicious meals. Pickled herring is still a feature on the midsummer menu along with a grilled dish of salmon or spare ribs. 

The evenings are spent gathered around a bonfire, enchanted by the ...

The beautiful white, frothy elderflowers tend to bloom in late May, turning to elderberries in late August. Prime picking time is in the morning, on a sunny day (before insects have taken the pollen). Once regarded as one of the most magically powerful of trees, elder is a forager's favourite and its flowers are the scent of summer. The flowers and berries are the only edible part of the Elder Tree. They are mildly toxic and have an unpleasant taste when raw. Cooking destroys the toxic chemicals.

Here are a few activities to explore:

1. Make delicious elderflower cordial or gin!
2. Add them to cakes or biscuits 
3. Try them deep-fried to make tasty elderflower fritters 
4. Make elderflower jam
5. Add them to homemade Playdough 
6. Add them to your mud kitchen and potions
7. Paint Elderflowers using a cotton bud to create a spray of white flowers - or splatter the paint to see what effect you get.

Find out more about Hygge in the Early Years here.

Young children love to be free and take off their clothes. Yet we can be so quick to cover them up, especially their feet! Children in the UK are often given shoes even before they can walk. 

Being barefoot is so beneficial and we feel so much of the world through our feet. A study in the journal 'Frontiers in Pediatrics' has shown that children who spend most of their time barefoot have increased motor skills and are better in jumping and balancing. 

Many teachers and forest school leaders here in the U.K share their experiences of children lacking in co-ordination and balance when moving around the uneven forest floor. 

When we spend time indoors we are greatly limiting the types of surfaces children learn to walk on and get used to moving around on. These are normally smooth and firm with no roughness or bumps.

When we take our shoes and socks off outdoors we are also connecting our bodies directly to nature which benefits our wellbeing too. Helping our mental health and bring...

I have created a list of over 50 wonderful nature based children's books to support our Rewilding your Wanderlust Child Nature Study.

Do let me know your favourite nature books.

Slow Down: Bring Calm to a Busy World with 50 Nature Stories

Seasons

Watch six breathtaking landscapes transform in front of your eyes in this beautifully illustrated book.

Once Upon a Raindrop: The Story of Water

Footprint

Hooray for Hoppy: A First Book of Senses

The Rhythm of the Rain

Wind (Whatever the Weather)

Snow (Whatever the Weather)

Tree: Seasons Come, Seasons Go

Explore the beauty of the changing seasons in this timeless peek-through book with gorgeous artwork.

The Big Book of Nature Art

From bestselling author Yuval Zommer, The Big Book of Nature Art is packed with twenty-two easy art activities inspired by nature. 

Nature's Treasures: Tales Of More Than 100 Extraordinary Objects From Nature

Nature's Treasures is a stunning nature encyclopedia for young readers ...

Fluffy Ducks Childcare : Our Hygee Journey

My name is Rhonda and I am a registered childminder based in Lancashire. I have been registered 21 years and have achieved Ofsted outstanding in my last two inspections. Whilst achieving this grading came with happiness for all my hard work, it unfortunately came with consequences. Pressure to maintain this, to be more like a nursery. To spend every minute of the day focusing on “What can we do now”, endless paperwork and planning. Expectations that I had created for myself. Gradually over the last 2years this has taken away my passion for my job, it has left me feeling my home is not my home, undervalued for what I do and dreading each day as it came.

Last year I found the Hygee accreditation through Facebook. The more I looked into this, the more I felt I needed to change, even if that meant changing how I work, the look of a nursery setting, losing my grading on my next inspection. I needed my business to become an extension of my ho...

Isn’t Hygge just about being cosy?

This is something I get asked lots!

A big part of hygge is about feeling cosy and comfortable but it’s also about appreciating the nature around you. It’s about learning to celebrate the joy that each season brings and spending time outdoors because it’s good for your mental health.

When it comes to our practice with the children we want our children to grow up with a natural love for their world. This is how education for sustainable development happens. We want our young children to see the beauty in the early hazel catkins, to dawdle and pause at the little daffodil dancing in the breeze and wonder in awe about how spider webs are formed.

This is why the Danish daily rhythm and early years curriculum is built around opportunities to experience the great outdoors.

For all your printable nature study resources, journals and nature study guides click here

February can be one of the hardest months of the year with the distance from Christmas and the sunnier days still feeling a long way out of reach.

As I write this blog post I feel hope.

“Today you are planting seeds to your dream. Be patient because it will be a large harvest.” Chris Burkmenn

Boris announced the roadmap out of lockdown for England last night and although we must still be careful it feels as though brighter days will be here sooner than we think. 

I wanted to share a few ways to help you thrive and flourish over the next month and support you in having a positive mindset.

• Listen out for the birds singing slightly longer each evening
• Look out for the rainbows in the sky
• Plan your summer garden; sow seeds, plant Dahlia tubers in pots inside, start a cut flower bed/ pot for children to pick flowers from and put in a vase on Hygge Friday
• Open the windows of your home and let the fresh air in
• Visit a pond and look out for frogspawn
• Create a nook indoors with all
...

28th February 2021

Are you ready for Intern1ational Hygge Day? 

Around the world Early Educators will be taking inspiration on Hygge and doing lots of cosy activities for themselves and children and sharing them using my #hyggeintheearlyyears

Why not have a coffee and cake break in the afternoon, wear your comfy clothes to work or have a family story time event?

Why not create your own hygge shadow puppets and tell a story or set up a cosy mountain small world scene!

If you're look for some ideas or inspiration then why not download my free guide here