Messy play day

This morning was rather nice, very windy (which amused both the boys, pretending they could fly) , best of all no rain, so we went for a lovley walk to the old sweetie shop, (via the bank and p.o) then popped in to our local church that has a jumble sale every saturday, a great source for new (ish) books for me and them, toys , beads buttons yarn scraps etc etc. This afternoon not so great weather wise, after a lovely visit from my mother, it started to rain, i did fancy doing some digging in the garden, alas it wasn't to be. So in bens wise mind he decided today was a great day for crafty paints, Having got 2 thomas the tank paint your own money boxes for christmas, cool..i can sit and knit and watch them get messy. One large plastic sheet and 2 well abused paint aprons later , i left them to get on with it. The thing that amuses me is the manufacturer of such items as paint your own kits..do they honestly think it will resemble anything close to what it is supposed to?  Should i have sat down and said no! no the red doesn't go there it goes there. In my opnion they whould be missing out an awful lot, creativity, imagination, learning what colours look like when mixed together for eample, they do learn important things such as colour recognition because i automatically tell them or ask them what colour it is, its been well proven that children learn through play, which is why i choose both their play school and infant school with great care, they focus more on play than sit down at desk type regimented learning. Which is why i could never send either of them to a montossori school, Now im sure tehre are some examples of really relaxed montessori schools but having reserched this type of school fairly well, if this method of teaching is understood the way i understand it "relaxed montessori schooling" seems to go against their own teaching methods. I know for one , one around here is very regimented, im sure they do get great results but at what cost? Why can a two year old not be a two year old? Theres something about seeing a tiny toddler in a proper school uniform that makes me go a bit bandy legged, to be honest it makes me go a bit bandy legged seeing my 4 year old in his school uniform. Im keeping my children, children for as long as i can thank you!