Take advantage of every opportunity

�??Would you like to pour juice into another glass? Here is a clean glass and I will help you with it. We spelt a bit, but it doesn't matter. Look, we will wipe it like this. Would you like to play a bit more with juice? Wait a minute, I will bring you a tray, an apron and clear water. Now you can pour juice!" The child feels respected and gets the opportunity to learn a lot by the activity of pouring. Of course he/she can learn new things naturally, without any pressure. By way of play we support development of skills, coordination, accuracy and endurance. And it is definitely worth a bit of a spilt juice.

There are situations when we have to deny the child some things. In any case it is good to remember what had caught child's interest and offer it to the child later with appropriate material and atmosphere. We take a strong attitude to the child and express that he/she can't have everything he/she wants, at least not immediately. One of the manifestation of rising personality's maturity is to be able to bare a postponing of satisfying current needs.

There are many possibilities and circumstances during the day which are possible to use educationally and turn to child's good account. I will give some examples:

• It is raining outside and puddles are arising. We put the child wellington boots on telling: "Today you are wearing rubber boots. You can walk by water only with your wellington boots on!" If we let the child to walk across the water, it will repeat it again and again. Playing in the rain puddle is a very good sensory and locomotive experience.
• While we walk the child can be captivated by a marble ledger located in a grass. It is different from walking on the grass. It clops while walking along the marble ledger. The child goes up and down the ledger once, two times or thirty times. We let it to experience that situation until it is fed up. It is a way of discovering the qualities of a surrounding world.
• The child fools around and begs a parent to play with him/her. He/she wants and needs to free himself/herself of an overpressure of joy and energy. If it is possible, the adult accepts this challenge and has fun spontaneously with the child. A physical game is very good for a development of a safe relationship between the child and the parent. It concerns closeness, controlling a physical power and experimentation of child's body motion by parent's motivation.
• The child is a curious and tireless observer when he/she pulls a pot from a kitchen unit. It throws cubes into the pot imitating the whirr of a food mixer as it had seen and heard yesterday while its mom mixed vegetables. The mother hands her child a wooden spoon, a pot-lid and other utensils to support and develop its symbolic game which had just begun.
• While playing in a huge gravel pit the child starts to move pebbles in a trowel on the kerb, where he/she precisely puts it one by one. This simple looking activity is an exercise of space orientation, precision and coordination. These acquired skills applies the child for example in constructive games. Constructions which the child makes of wooden cubes are becoming more difficult day after day and this is also because of this seemingly unrelated exercise.

Let's be close to our children and take every opportunity to support their learning. Following the child's interests leads to an independent playing, unshrinking experimentation, creating new ways of solving situations and overcoming difficulties with high self-confidence.

A child discovers a glass with juice on the table and tries to pour it into another glass. At first we feel like taking strong action telling:�??No, no, let it be, you can�??t do such things with juice!�?? But such situation can be very easily used to good account of the child.