Froebel's Gifts Part 9

Each sequence starts from a definite point, the four outside blocks revolving round the central four, and going through or "dancing through," as Froebel says, all the successive figures before returning in the opposite direction.

All the dictations are most valuable intellectually, but should not be long-continued at one time, as they require great concentration of mind, and are consequently wearisome.

Hints from Ronge's "Guide."

Excellent exercises or suggestions for building can be found in Ronge's "Kindergarten Guide." He mentions one pleasant little play which I will quote. "When each in the cla.s.s has produced a different form, let the children rise and march round the table to observe the variety." Let them sing in the ascending and descending scales:--

Many pretty forms I see, Which one seems the best to me?

At another time let each child try to build the house he lives in, and while this is being done, let them join in singing some song about home. It is well to encourage singing during the building exercises, as we have so many appropriate selections.[40]

[40] See _Kindergarten Chimes_ (Kate D. Wiggin), Oliver Ditson Publishing Co.: "Building Song," pages 34, 35; "Trade Game," page 70; "The Carpenter," page 92.

Group Work.

With the first of the Building Gifts enters a new variety of group work, which was not adapted for the first and second gifts. The children may now be seated at square tables, one at each side, and build in unison in the centre, the form produced being of course four times as large and fine as any one of the number could have produced alone. All the suggestions or directions for building are necessarily carried out together, and the success of the completed form is obviously dependent on the cooperation of all four children. Forms of Beauty are very easily constructed in this manner, as well as forms of Life, having four uniform sides, and when the little ones are somewhat more expert builders, Life forms having opposite sides alike, or even four different sides, may be constructed.

The other various forms of cooperative work are of course never to be neglected, that a social unity may be produced, in which "the might of each individual may be reinforced by the might of the whole."

MATHEMATICAL FORMS.

A better idea of these may be obtained through a manipulation of the blocks and an arrangement of the geometrical forms in their regular order.

The child, if he were taught as Froebel intended, would make his first acquaintance with numbers in the nursery, beginning in a very small way and progressing slowly. The pupils of the kindergarten are a little older, and having already a slight knowledge of numbers (though not of course in their abstract relations) are able to accomplish greater things.

The child can, with our guidance, make all possible combinations of the parts of the number Eight. The principles of Addition, Subtraction, even Multiplication and Fractions, can also be mastered without one tear of misery or pang of torture. He grasps the whole first, then by simple processes, building with his own hands, he finds out and demonstrates for himself halves, fourths, and eighths, sometimes in different positions, but always having the same contents.

Method and Manner of using the Gift.

Even yet we must not suffer this to become work. The exercises should be repeated again and again, but we must learn to break off when the play is still delightful, and study ways to endow the next one with new life and charm, though it carry with it the same old facts. What we want to secure is, not a formidable number of parrot-like statements, but a firm foundation for future clearness of understanding, depth of feeling, and firmness of purpose. So, at the beginning of the exercise, we should not ask John if he remembers what we talked about last time, and expect him to answer clearly at once.

Because he does not answer our formal questions which do not properly belong to babyhood, we need not conclude he has learned nothing, for a child can show to our dull eyes only a very tiny glimpse of his wonderful inner world.

Let our aim be, that the child shall little by little receive impressions so clearly that he will recognize them when they appear again, and that he shall, after a time, know these impressions by their names. It is nothing but play after all, but it is in this childish play that deep meaning lies.

A child is far less interested in that which is given him complete than in that which needs something from him to make it perfect. He loves to employ all his energies in conceiving and constructing forms; the less you do for him the better he enjoys it, if he has been trained to independence.[41]

[41] "Probably the chief wish of children is to do things for themselves, instead of to have things done for them. They would gladly live in a Paradise of the Home-made. For example, when we read how the 'prentices of London used to skate on sharp bones of animals, which they bound about their feet, we also wished, at least, to try that plan, rather than to wear skates bought in shops." (Andrew Lang.)

"Complete toys hinder the activity of children, encourage laziness and thoughtlessness, and do them more harm than can be told. The active tendency in them turns to the distortion of what is complete, and so becomes destructive."

"Any fusing together of lessons, work, and play, is possible only when the objects with which the child plays allow room for independent mental and bodily activity, i. e., when they are not themselves complete in the child's hand. Had man found everything in the world fixed and prepared for use; had all means of culture, of satisfaction for the spiritual and material wants of his nature, been ready to his hand, there would have been no development, no civilization of the human race."

Pedantry and dogmatism must be eliminated from all the dictations; the life must not be shut out of the lessons in order that we may hear a pin drop, nor should they be allowed to degenerate into a tedious formalism and mechanical puppet-show, in which we pull the strings and the poor little dummies move with one accord.

Yet most emphatically a certain order and harmony must prevail, the forms must follow each other in natural sequence, the blocks must, invariably, be taken carefully from the box, so as to present a whole at the first glance, and at the close of the lesson should always be neatly put together again into the original form and returned to the box as a whole.[42]

[42] "In order to furnish to the child at once clearly and definitely the _impression of the whole_, of _the self-contained_, the plaything before it is given to the child for his own free use must be opened as follows.... It will thus appear before the observing child as a cube closely united, yet easily separated and again restored."--Froebel's _Pedagogics_, pages 123, 124.

And now one last word of warning about doing too much for the children in these exercises, and even guiding too much, carrying system and method too far in dictation. We must remember that an excess of systematizing crushes instead of developing originality, and that it is all too easy even in the kindergarten to turn children into machines incapable of acting when the guiding hand is removed.

NOTE.

In opening the boxes, it is well to observe some simple form. It is not irksome, but, on the contrary, rather pleasing to the children, who delight in doing things in concert.

BOXES IN CENTRE OF TABLE.

1. Draw the cover out one half s.p.a.ce.

2. Fingers of right hand placed on left-hand side of box.

3. Turn entirely over from left to right.

4. Withdraw lid and place on right-hand upper corner of table.

5. Lift box gently and place on top of cover mouth upwards.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Reminiscences of Froebel. _Von Marenholtz-Bulow_. Page 152.

Child and Child Nature. _Von Marenholtz-Bulow_. 145, 146.

Education. _E. Seguin_. 95, 96.

Lessons in Form. _W. W. Speer_. 23.

Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. _Fr. Froebel_. 108-44.

Education of Man. _Fr. Froebel_. Tr. by _Josephine Jarvis_. 40, 41.

Kindergarten at Home. _E. Shirreff_. 12-14.

Kindergarten Culture. _W. N. Hailmann_. 55-66.

Paradise of Childhood. _Edward Wiebe_. 11-16.

Law of Childhood. _W. N. Hailmann_. 35-38.

Kindergarten Guide. _J_. and _B. Ronge_. 5-13.

Kindergarten Guide. _Kraus-Boelte_. 27-47.

Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by _Mary Gurney_. 20-23.

Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. H. _Courthope Bowen_.

140-42.

Kindergarten Toys. _Heinrich Hoffmann_. 17-26.

Conscious Motherhood. _E. Marwedel_. 165, 166.

The Kindergarten. _H. Goldammer_. 49-70.

FROEBEL'S FOURTH GIFT

"A new gift is demanded--a gift wherein the length, breadth, and thickness of a solid body shall be distinguished from each other by difference of size. Such a gift will open the child's eyes to the three dimensions of s.p.a.ce, and will serve also as a means of recognizing and interpreting the manifold forms and structures with which he is constantly brought in contact."

"The inner difference, intimated in the three perpendicular axes of the cube (and the sphere), now becomes externally visible and abiding in each of its building blocks as a difference of size." FR. FROEBEL.