Naps or no naps, everyone needs a rest in the middle of their day. For adults its often a cup of coffee and a scroll through the social media feeds or a coffee in hand and a walk around the office floors to chat about anything but work. 
Young children observe, process and interact from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep. (Well even at night they are still processing in their sleep!) It is important to build in a moment of rest. When children drop their mid day naps, the word rest is not popular to use. This is where story time comes in! A moment for old and young to snuggle up together with a good book, or 2 or 3! 

At Little Sprouts DK we will be snuggling up with sleeping bags and pillows in the fresh air in our shelters and reading plenty pf stories. Anybody in need for a nap can doze off and the rest of us can read till our legs need to move again.

We love books and story time at home! 
For our eldest daughters school I was asked to record a story time session for book week 2021. I hope you can enjoy it with your little one too: 

This is my youngest daughter and she LOVES "make decorations!". She has been making about 2-3 each week since mid November. My eldest has made quite a couple too, come to think of it so have I!

Perhaps because it is easy to do, it is a lovely family activity to go out to the forrest and/or the beach and collect natural items together, plus you feel proud sitting at the table having something to eat and watching your decoration been lit with the dark view from the windows in the background. 
(It's also a great way to strengthen those fine motor skills!)

It gets light here around 8:15 and dark again at 16:00 this time of year. Another reason to get your candle decoration game on. There are so many options of materials to use and children can add their own creativity too, by adding their favourite toy car, summer dried flowers or leaves found on their last outdoor play session. 

We know that candles are a big part of hygge here in Denmark, though not the best to breathe in nor environmentally friendly. In the video below we have gone with a beeswax candle- rolled by my eldest daughter this summer. (It is better for the environment, for us and it smells so good too!) The shops are full of LED options too and these also have the nice side- effect of not being afraid your house might burn down.

Sending you light and warmth- and wishing you a happy new year too while at it. 

Well, we still don't always like full days of heavy rain! And on these wet rainy days we do like to find shelter, either in shelters in the forrest or indoors. 
But cold we can handle. And in this windy scandinavian climate they do like to say: "There's no such thing as bad weather, just wrong clothing!"

I often get asked if myself or the children are feeling cold?
No! Dressing in layers and staying warm is key to have a fun day of outdoor learning in the winter months. Even though the Danish Winters are milder than before, that strong scandinavian wind blows right through thermo-clothing, brrrr. Snowsuits combined with wool is perfect.

And why not waterproof ski-gloves or ski-mittens I hear you ask?
Because it's impossible to pick up small forrest crawlies with those big waterproof things. The children get so frustrated and stop wanting to wear anything on their hands. It's better to purchase multiple pairs of woollen/knitted gloves and then swap them out and put on a dry pair if they get woodland wet. 

I also recommend wool underwear (if your child isn't hypersensitive) and thermo rain-boots. Most supermarkets carry these too. 

If the snowsuit gets wet and needs some time drying, then a set of thermo/fleece jacket and pants with rain clothing going over these will do great as an afternoon back up.

Don't wash!
Waterproof rain gear, stays waterproof if it doesn't get washed too often. Parents often worry that other people will think they aren't taking care of their child by sending their child to daycare/kindergarten in a dried up muddy snowsuit. But you are keeping your child dry and warm! 
Got a muddy snowsuit? Muddy rain clothes? Hang to dry, shake, slap off the dried mud and use it right away again! Trust me- it just gets muddy again within the next hour of outdoor play time. And so it should! Mud and water play helps develop so many areas of development. But we can get into that another blog post. 

Here is a video to help you out!