Learning in Everyday Life

My daughter had learned to tie her shoe laces in kindergarten when she was four years old. Naturally, she wanted to practice this new skill at home. Since this activity demanded some time, the patience of my wife soon deteriorated. Thus, she decided to take things into her own hands. My daughter complained, she wanted to do it herself! “We don’t have time now, Emma” and quickly the shoelaces were tied. This might save time in the short-term, but the learning experience of the child was stalled. This is part of everyday life in many families.

Parents should observe the daily activities of their children. We need to question if we unintentionally and unconsciously inhibit learning process in certain situations. Often parents interfere to save time or to prevent the children from making mistakes. However we should allow the child to try the task no matter how banal they seem e.g. opening a zipper or buttering a slice of bread.

Maria Montessori recalls the following:  
“The first thing I particularly noticed was a little girl of about three busy slipping cylinders in and out of their containers. These cylinders are of different sizes and have corresponding holes into which they fit like a cork in a bottle. I was surprised to see so small a child performing this exercise over and over again with such intense interest. She showed no apparent increase in speed or facility in executing the task: it was a kind of perpetual motion.

From force of habit I began to count the number of times she repeated the exercise. I then decided to see how concentrated she was in her strange employment. I told the teacher to make the other children sing and move about. But this did not disturb the child at all in her labors. I then gently picked up the chair in which she was sitting and set it on top of a small table. As I lifted the chair she clutched the objects with which she was working and placed them on her knees, but then continued with the same task. From the time I began to count, she repeated the exercise forty-two times. Then she stopped as if coming out of a dream and smiled happily. Her eyes shone brightly and she looked about.”

Read more at the book "Unleash the Secret of Education and learn how to raise a happy child" by Hans-Peter Becker.

Children need Time

Lets take a look at the time at Kindergarten and the hopes and fears of parents. In order to provide children with an advantage in school, there is a tendency to expect they will be taught the first steps in reading and writing at Kindergarten. This expectation, however, contradicts the natural principles of development.

Life consists of different stages of development and growth. A toddler independently learns to move. They turn from their back on their front, then learn to sit, to crawl and eventually to walk and run. Each of these steps is important and requires time. None of these steps can be skipped, and this applies to all stages of life.

Maria Montessori describes these as the ‘sensitive periods’ of infancy:  
“A sensitive period refers to a special sensibility which a creature aquires in its infantile state, while it is still in a process of evolution. It is a transient disposition and limitied to the aquisition of a particular trait. Once this trait or characteristic has been acquired, the special sensibility disappears.” (M. Montessori, "The secret of Childhood")  

A child learns according to a predetermined plan. From time to time various “learning windows” open up and the child has to be given time to experience this period. Parents have to support the child in these phases by providing adequate learning offers:  

“A child is naturally much weaker than an adult. If he is to develop his personality, it is necessary that the adult should hold himself in check and follow the lead given by the child. And he should regard it as a privilege that he is able to understand and follow him.”

Read more at the book "Unleash the Secret of Education and learn how to raise a happy child" by Hans-Peter Becker.

Get outside of the Comfort Zone

Many people like to remain in control of every aspect of their life. However, in order to grow and develop as a person we have to leave our comfort zone from time to time. This helps us expand our individual network of habits, paradigms and worldviews i.e. everything that feels comfortable. Consequently, our paradigms increase the boundaries of our personal comfort zones.

It is natural to step outside of the comfort zone regularly, to be curious to discover new things and expand your personal area of control. This is the basis for constant growth. It is the reason why it is vital that children are able to explore the unfamiliar. Rather than degenerate in front of the television, they can confront new situations and handle these on their own. On the other hand, parents have to measure the right amount of freedom each child should have. This, in turn, requires the acquisition of a new ‘habit’ (which presupposes a great awareness of the child and his or her development), and the corresponding ‘skills’. Without a doubt, the desire to provide the best education for the child already exists.    

“Sometimes it is more venturesome to doubt the familiar, than to explore the unfamiliar” (Alexander von Humboldt)

Problems are aiding development because problems create opportunities to expand our area of control. A problem is a problem because it exists within our personal universe, but outside our comfort zones. Consequently, every new problem provides us with a chance to grow. The situations that we can directly influence and control lie within our comfort zones. Those that interest us – but have no influence – exist in our personal universe.  

 “Even the stones that block our way, can be used to build something beautiful” (Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe)

Abstract of the book "Unleash the Secret of Education and learn how to raise a happy child" by Hans-Peter Becker.

Introduce Music to your Kid

Children are curious by nature. The more fun and creative ways we use to attract their attention the more they will want to explore the world around them.

One of the best activities for your little child is music. Music and making music contributes positively to the quality of life and general well-being. Improvement at social competence, intelligence, concentration, emotional stability, creativity, and overall performance are only some of the benefits.
Thus, introducing the world of music to children is something wonderful that all parents should do. All it takes is some extra creativity and imagination from your side.

You can easily use everyday objects like pans, salt&pepper shakers, plastic bottles and other containers, plastic spoons etc in order to teach them musical concepts like rhythm, and glasses filled with varying amounts of water to create different sounds.

Give your kids the chance to create sounds by themselves. Let them use real and safe instruments like drums, flute or melodika and combine their body movements to produce sound.

You can also engage them at another level and help them create their own musical instruments out of recycled materials. This is a wonderful activity that all kids love!

Here are some ideas for handmade, easy-to-make instruments:

CYMBALS

• two matching pot covers

• yarn or ribbon

Tie the ribbon or yarn around the handles of the pot covers. To play, strike together.

GUITAR

•  empty shoe box

•  rubber bands

•  ruler or stick

Remove the cover from the box. Stretch the rubber bands around the box. Attach the ruler or stick to the back of the box on one end to act as the arm of the guitar.

To play, strum or pluck the rubber bands.

Here you will find more ideas for instruments!

Wanna learn about music programs for kids? Check here!

The best way to boost your child's creativity.

Creativity is a fundamental activity of human information processing, as an essential feature of human intelligence. One of the basic differences that distinguish human brain from other animals is our capacity to engage in cognitive abilities such as reasoning, representation, association, working memory, and self-reflection.
During any creative act, from language production to marketing techniques, ideas or past experiences are combined in significant ways and produce new data via the interaction of such cognitive capacities.





Α key element of our evolutionary path is that the human brain possesses the capability of making complex new things that are not explicitly necessary for biological survival or reproduction and this is best explained through arts.

“The three year study indicates that using arts processes to teach academic subjects results not only in improved understanding of content, but in greatly improved self-regulatory behavior. This answers our key question: whether skills from the arts transfer to other areas. Using arts processes proved extremely powerful.” - - Horace, May 1996

 In comparison to other arts, such as design, photography, and sculpture, however, the universal abilities of musical creation and processing are generally accepted as some of the oldest and most fundamental of human socio-cognitive development.

Many of the most successful and brilliant people have studied music at some point in their life.
That doesn’t necessarily means that learning to play music is a precondition for success or intelligence by itself. But what music and music lessons do is that this process gives our brain an opportunity to practice abstract and creative thought.




Despite all the research on this topic and the general acceptance of the idea that music offers much more than just pleasure, music education and other arts are removed more and more from  the daily schedule of students at schools. Arts are replaced by science and math with the expectation of growing a high intelligent generation, capable of solving the most difficult problems. But the thing is that the best problem solvers are these who are able to think outside of the box, these who combine and create new data and thus being creative.



As a conclusion, music lessons and music in general is one of the best ways to train your brain and boost your creativity.  This little story explains everything:
While working with young jazz soloists, Miles Davis once said, “Play what you hear, not what you know.” Practice, experience, and sheer talent taught Davis that a personally and socially satisfying gig occurs when the ideas entering the musician’s imagination are developed through solo improvisations instead of ignored in favor of practiced patterns.

sources
http://dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=35670
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-littlefield/music-creativity-potential_b_4118737.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/DyeHard/story?id=4386976