A Hygge Christmas

Here at Explorosity we enjoy creating awe inspiring experiences for our children and Christmas is the perfect opportunity to create intrigue. 

For our youngest children they may not remember any Christmas experiences or language or maybe it is their first ever Christmas experience so we subtly add a few books from the beginning of November into our provision to spark interest. 

We create a cosy environment filled with provocations and invitations to play that support children's knowledge and skills. We make lots of time to share experiences our children are having at home. Christmas is often a really busy time for families so we ensure that we are able to listen and notice and spend time sharing quality activities together. 

We are a very homely setting, our Kindergarten have their little tree in their role play area that they have decorated beautifully! We regularly add to this tree with decorations the children have made throughout December adding to that sense of pride and ownership for the children. 

Our Toddlers environment is much more sensory, incorporating lots of lights. We use much dimmer lighting in our setting creating a calmer atmosphere. We use lots of mirrors and enhanced our heuristic play resources with bauble threading and seriation activities supporting some of our children's current interests.  

Our baby room has an igloo, we have placed wadding as snow on the floor and rope lights underneath to create that sense of awe and wonder. Books to support Christmas are placed throughout the environment - tactile and sound making books too. 

We created a Christmas treasure basket with a simple book called 'Christmas' by Jane Foster. Our practitioner's use these stories to enhance our children's language and the vocabulary of Christmas. 

Not forgetting the bathroom! Children (like adults) talk a lot in the bathroom. We have decorated the bathrooms to encourage that language development. We have Santa and snowman soaps at the sinks to develop a talking point for children. 

And not forgetting the garden! The magical snowflakes that may fall, that wintery weather has set in providing us early years teachers with lots of curious children about the ice and coldness. These are perfect opportunities to explore the effect that winter has on nature. 

We have added Christmas trees to our stream making it look like a magical forest. The stream has been a candy cane river, its been sprinkled with fairy glitter and we found a Christmas gonk hiding under the bridge! Imagine the journies that those stories took us all on!