Taikaniitty is an At Home in Nature daycare centre for 28 children in Pyörreperä, Ylivieska

The nature-oriented daycare centre Taikaniitty provides early childhood education and care for children aged 1–5 years. We offer safe and child-centred early education in a versatile, homelike environment that enables learning with all senses. The children get to wonder, explore and observe their surroundings in interaction with the educators.

The At Home in Nature operation involves participating in unhurried activities, making nature trips three times a week and playing in nature without manufactured toys. We spend several hours outdoors every day, and many of our educational activities take place in the yard or the forest. In the daycare centre yard, the children have the opportunity to participate in designing the play activities and environment. We have a small vegetable garden, and we make soil for the yard plants from our kitchen waste. Our childcarers have completed environment educator studies, and they provide the children with exciting experiences, such as outdoor mealtimes and naps in the yard lean-to or in hammocks in a forest.

Taikaniitty has been awarded with the Finnish Outdoor Association’s Metsämörri quality label and the Flavour Alphabet Diploma. Read more about the Flavour Alphabet here (in Finnish).

Small group activities

Our small group and At Home in Nature activities increase the interaction among the children and between the children and the educators. Everyday pedagogy is an essential part of the unhurried days at the daycare centre. We engage in nature activities in small groups, and the daycare centre has been granted permission to use the neighbouring unoccupied yard as a place to observe natural phenomena.

Children aged 1–2 years spend unhurried everyday life in their own small group. Intimacy and storytelling activities are important for the youngest children at the daycare centre, and we ensure that they always have a safe lap to sit on, if needed. Our everyday operation provides them with opportunities for independent activities and self-initiative both indoors and outdoors. As manual skills are important for all children, we allow 1–2-year-olds, too, to participate in handicraft activities under our educators’ instruction. Our outdoor activities provide the youngest group with the opportunity to walk and move independently, and we practise moving in nature in both small groups and with the older children.

Children aged 3 years are already familiar with the everyday routines. They build puzzles enthusiastically and develop their manual skills through various everyday activities. The energetic children also play outdoors and participate in forest trips eagerly. They sometimes participate in exciting trips to the local recycling point. However, for a three-year-old, a good day at daycare might sometimes still require more personal time and space. In that case, our flexible educators adapt the activities taking account of the children’s needs.

Children aged 4–5 years show example for the younger children in various activities, such as good table manners and waste sorting. These skilful learners engage in long-lasting play, and they can already come up with their own games in the yard and during forest trips. With the older children, we sometimes spend the mealtime in the forest and take a nap in hammocks. In the daycare centre yard, we utilise waste materials in games based on the children’s ideas. The imaginative children turn the treasures they have found in the forest, nature or the recycling point into magnificent pieces of art.