Kreativwerkstatt Sydals

Sydals is a small island in southern Denmark, connected to the mainland by a single bridge. It is quiet, flat, and extraordinarily well-suited for a week of creative learning outside the regular school environment. The Kreativwerkstatt — creative workshop — uses the island itself as a classroom.

What is the Kreativwerkstatt?

The Kreativwerkstatt Sydals is a week-long learning experience combining creative workshops, outdoor activities, and community projects. Children work with local artists, explore the landscape, and produce something they couldn't have made in their regular classroom. The point is not just the product — it is the process of making in an unfamiliar place.

Why leave the classroom?

Learning in a new environment disrupts routine in the best way. Children who behave in fixed patterns at school often surprise themselves — and their teachers — when placed in a different context. The absence of familiar social roles creates space for new capabilities to emerge. Children who rarely speak up in class become leaders on a forest walk.

The island as material

Sydals offers wind, water, fields, and the particular quietness of an island. These become raw material: for writing, for drawing, for building, for observation. Children gather natural objects, make field notes, and use what they find. The landscape is not just a backdrop — it is the subject.

Community and collaboration

A week away from school brings a class together in ways that months of regular lessons sometimes do not. Shared meals, evening activities, and the mild challenge of being away from home build bonds that persist back in the classroom. Teachers observe the week as a turning point in class dynamics.

Bringing it back

The workshop does not end when the group returns. The work produced on Sydals — drawings, stories, constructions, photographs — becomes exhibition material, a class publication, or a presentation to other classes. The experience lives on in the classroom through the artefacts it generated.