Bring Hygge into Your Homeschool in 5 Easy Steps

Let’s face it, we are all spending a lot more time at home right now. Home is where we work, school, eat, sleep, exercise, relax. It is everything, but is it a place where we find contentment? That was a question I was asking myself last year as I was parenting (and homeschooling) in a pandemic. Hearing about hygge in relation to home and school immediately drew me in.Hygge (pronounced hue-gah) is a Danish word and really a whole concept. It is a mood. A feeling. The special in the ordinary. It is coziness, contentment, slowing down. hygge flatlay

My first introduction to hygge as a part of homeschool was in the Adventures in Scandinavia: Hygge Christmas Special. Even I enjoyed working on the Scandinavian coloring sheet while introducing my children to a piece of the culture. Over the next few days and weeks, I started to think of more ways to include hygge into our lessons. The act of consciously slowing down and living in the moment was a habit that I desperately needed in our homeschool routine and simply in my everyday life.

I now incorporate hygge into our routine by writing it into our weekly schedule; and as a result, it is also creeping its way into our life through small habits.

Here are 5 Easy Steps You can bring Hygge into your Homeschool:

Start a gratitude journal.
Read books together as a family, snuggled on the couch.
Enjoy calming activities like watercolor painting with no real directive.
Try independent reading, where even mom grabs her own book and a blanket.
Hot chocolate, because it’s the icing on the cake to a relaxed hygge day.

My hope for bringing coziness into our lives was to create this standard of contentment and connection in our home. My hope moving forward is that familiarity with this Danish habit will provide my kids with a connection to the culture as we begin to learn about other Nordic countries, like we plan to do with the Adventures in Sweden, from The Build Your Masterpiece Class.