The Freedom to Choose {in the Montessori Method }

The other day I set up the table for Derin to play with playdough. When he was finished I left it on the table thinking Defne might play with it. I had  also prepared a bin full of water beads and put it on the table for them to play. While Derin was napping, Defne started playing with the water beads. I left her alone in the play room and when I came back about 45 minutes later I found this.

She had sorted the water beads according to their colors and the ones that are broken are put in one of the dividers as well. Now, if you would ask any adult to do this, s/he would probably say "Are you kidding me?"
However for a child, it is different. Defne came up with this idea on her own during her play She must have met her need for order or something else that we may not be aware of.
There were still some water beads left in the bin, but she stopped sorting when her needs were met. Also, the beads are slippery so she must have shown great care and concentration during the transfer and apparently she enjoyed doing it.
In a Montessori environment, the child has the freedom to choose what to do. The child is free to move around, to communicate with the adults or the other children, to play or to rest if that is what s/he wants to do.
Respecting and not interrupting a child's concentration is central to Montessori's philosophy. The child needs  time and freedom to repeat and to repeat endlessly, until her/his needs are met. Sometimes, we, as adults, tend to think that children are "wasting" their time, they are not "learning" anything. In fact, children learn all the time if we give them  that time and freedom. For instance, during her play Defne developed her fine motor skills and math skills (one to one correspondence)
Derin is 3.5 years old now. Recently  I  have started to set up the same activity for both kids, modifying the activity a little bit according to their age or interests.
When Derin woke up and saw the water beads, he asked for me to set up the "lego slide". He wanted to transfer the beads using the spoon. Each child is different and following the child's interest always helps them to develop and to learn, in their own way and in their own time.

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All Year Round Blog Carnival {Summer}

I am delighted to announce the beginning of the All Year Round Blog Carnival: Summer, a collection of summer posts sharing seasonal thoughts, pictures, activities, crafts, recipes, books, art, nature study, projects, celebrations and more.

You are invited to join us and link up your old and new summer posts (maximum 5 posts a day per blog). The summer carnival will remain open for new links until the autumn carnival begins in September so you can come back and link up more posts throughout the summer. We hope you'll enjoy visiting the host blogs and posts from the linky for lots of summer ideas and inspiration.

Please link to the URL of your summer themed post. You can find out more about All Year Round and get a button here, and also follow All Year Round on Pinterest and find us on Twitter at#AllYearRoundSummer.

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Organizing a Cupcake Party

Image credit:Free Stock Photo

I decided it would be great fun to organize a cupcake party for the children before the holiday starts.
Both my kids love helping me in the kitchen. I personally remember the days when my mum and grandma baked cookies together. They used to bake a lot and I just loved that as a child.
Having said that I always bake cookies or cakes. But I am a complete novice when it comes to cupcakes. Baking cupcakes will be a new experience for all of us and it is always great to learn new skills.
I  need to buy some cake moulds. There are so many options to choose from. The possibilities are literally endless. Moulds come in all sorts of shapes and size. Cupcake decorations can bring you a whole new world. I like the paper cupcake cases like this

These lavender ones are also very pretty:

And then there is the fancy job of icing the cupcakes and decorating them. There are interesting and beautiful toppers and different kinds of nozzles to create the shape you like.

Love Birds Edible Toppers

I would really love to get creative and experienced in baking cupcakes. They look great and everyone likes them after all,plus they would make beautiful edible gifts.
 As always I  go to my trusty source when it comes to recipes: BBC Good Food Magazine. I decided to use this Chocolate Fudge Cake recipe which looks perfect for the kids.
Do you enjoy baking cupcakes? I would love to hear your tried and tested recipes or any tips for a beginner.

This post is brought to you in conjunction with MakeBake.

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