Froebel's Gifts Part 7

The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts are divided units, and their significance lies in the relationship of the parts to one another, and to the whole of which they are the parts.

The effect of the Building Gifts is to develop the constructive powers of the child. Their secondary importance lies in the fact that they afford striking fundamental perceptions of Form, Size, Number, Relation, and Position.

The following rules should govern the dictation exercises:--

BUILDING RULES.

1. Use all material in order to keep the idea of relation of parts to a whole, and because all unused material is wasted material.[31]

[31] "In each construction the whole of the materials must be used; or at least each separate piece must be arranged so as to stand in some actual relation to the whole. While this awakens the thinking spirit, it also strengthens and elevates the imagination; because amidst so much variety, the underlying unity is made visibly apparent."--Froebel's _Letters_, tr. by Michaelis and Moore, page 72.

2. Build on the squares of the table in order to develop accuracy and symmetry.

3. "Induce the child to form other wholes gradually and systematically from the various parts of the cube. In doing this the laws of contrast and development must be your guide."

KOEHLER.

4. Give names to each object constructed, thereby bringing it into relation with the child's experience; for the miniature model serves to interpret more clearly to him the object which it represents.

5. Connect with the child's life and sympathy in order to increase his interest and develop the tendency to view things in their right relations.

6. "The younger the child, the more you should talk about the thing which you intend to construct. You should intersperse pa.s.sing observations or short songs. As the children gain intelligence, this conversation will be replaced by more formal descriptions of the things represented."

KOEHLER.

7. Begin with Life forms and proceed from these to forms of Beauty and Knowledge.

8. Allow no child to rely upon the blocks of his playmates in his building,--thus he will learn economy, self-reliance, and independence of action.

This should not be carried too far, or rather the necessity and beauty of interdependence should also be taught. Herein, indeed, lies more than at first appears. To make the most out of little is the great work of life; to be contented with what one has, and to make the best of it with happiness and contentment is surely no small lesson, and one which is constantly, though indirectly, taught in the kindergarten work and plays and lessons.

9. Group work, or united building, should frequently be introduced.

"Every direction given by the kindergartner should be followed by spontaneous work (either in word or deed) by the child. This must not only be individual, but synthesized for the community."

10. Often encourage the cla.s.s to imitate some specially attractive form which has been produced by a child, and named according to his fancy.

11. Accustom the child to develop figures or forms by slight changes rather than by rudely destroying each single one preparatory to constructing another. From learning to be strictly methodical in his actions, he will become so in his later reasoning.

12. "Let the child, if possible, correct his own mistakes, and do not constantly interfere with his work. Whatever he is able to do for himself, no one should do for him."

KOEHLER.

FROEBEL'S THIRD GIFT

"All children have the building instinct, and 'to make a house' is a universal form of unguided play."

"It is not a mere pastime, but a key with which to open the outer world, and a means of awakening the inner world."

"This gift includes in itself more outward manifoldness, and, at the same time, makes the inward manifoldness yet more perceptible and manifest."

"The plaything shows also the ultimate type of structures put together by human hand which stand in their substantiality around the child." FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.

"The definitely productive exercises begin with the third gift." SUSAN E. BLOW.

1. The third gift is a wooden cube measuring two inches in each of its dimensions. It is divided once in its height, breadth, and thickness, according to the three dimensions which define a solid, and thus eight smaller cubes are produced.

2. We pa.s.s from the undivided to the divided unit, emphasizing the fact that unity still exists, though divisibility enters as a new factor.

3. The most important characteristics of the gift are contrasts of size resulting in the abstraction of form from size; increase of material as a whole, decrease of size in parts; increase of facilities in ill.u.s.trating form and number.

The new experience to be found in this first divided body is the idea of relativity; of the whole in its relation to the parts (each an embryo whole), and of the parts in relation to the whole.

The form of the parts is like the form of the whole, but, in shape alike, the dissimilarity is in size; the fact becoming more apparent by a variety of combinations of a different number of parts: thus the relations of numbers are introduced to the observation of the child together with those of form and magnitude.

4. The third gift was intended by Froebel to meet the necessities of the child at a period when, no longer satisfied with the external appearances of things, he strives to penetrate their internal conditions, and begins to realize the many different possibilities of the same element.

5. The geometrical forms ill.u.s.trated in this gift are:--

{Cube.

Solids. {Square Prism.

{Rectangular Parallelopiped.

Planes. {Square.

{Oblong.

6. Froebel intends the building exercise to be carried on in a certain way with a view of establishing a law to regulate the child's activity. The upper and lower parts of the figure--the contrasts--are first brought into position, and the balance is established by the intermediates--right and left.

The cube itself is divided according to the law of Mediation of Contrasts. The contrasts of exterior and interior, whole and parts, a.n.a.lysis and synthesis, are also brought into relation with each other.

Hailmann on Third Gift.

Mr. W. N. Hailmann says that the third gift marks an important step in the mental life of the child. Heretofore, he has had to do with playthings indivisible, whole, complete in themselves. Every impression, or, rather, every fact, came to him as a unit, a one, an indivisible whole.

The a.n.a.lyses and syntheses that are presented to him in the first and second gifts come ready-made as it were, so that the joyous exercise of his instinctive activity, guided and directed by the judicious, loving mother, is sufficient to give him control of them; indeed, the first and second gifts hold to his mental development the same relation that the mother's milk holds to his physical growth.

But the third gift satisfies the growing desire for independent activity, for the exercise of his own power of a.n.a.lysis and synthesis, of taking apart and putting together.[32]

[32] "The idea of separation gained here in concrete form becomes typical of that condition which must always exist in any growth--the seed breaks through its coverings, and seems to divide itself into distinct parts, each having its function in the growth of the whole plant." (Alice H.

Putnam.)

Simplicity but Adaptability of the Gifts.

Simple as this first building gift appears, it is capable of great things. It lends itself to a hundred practical lessons and a hundred charming transformations, but if it is not thoroughly comprehended it will never be well or effectively used by the kindergartner, and will be nothing more to her than to uninterested observers, who see in it nothing more than eight commonplace little blocks in a wooden box.