Froebel's Gifts Part 11

Here comes in, too, a necessity of calculation not before required.

The cubes could be placed on any side and always occupy the same s.p.a.ce, but the building with the bricks will vary according as they are placed on the broad, the narrow, or the short face. They must also fit together and bear a certain relation to each other.

In the dictations it will be perceived that we now have to specify the position which the brick must take as well as the place which it is to occupy. We designate the three faces of the brick as the broad face, the narrow face, and the short face or end.

Fourth Gift Building.

The symmetrical forms are much more interesting than before and decidedly more artistic when viewed in comparison with the somewhat thick and clumsy designs made with the cubes. The fourth gift forms cover more s.p.a.ce, approach nearer the surface, and the bricks slide gracefully from one position to another, and slip in and out of the different figures with a movement which seems like a swan's, compared with the goose-step of the stubby little cubes.

It is a noteworthy fact that "the buds," as Froebel calls them, of all the fourth gift Beauty forms were contained in those of the third gift, and have here opened into fuller bloom.

The Life forms are much more artistic now, and begin to imitate a little more nearly the objects they are intended to represent. We can make more extensive buildings also since we have an additional height or length of eight inches over that of the third gift, and thus can cover double the amount of surface and inclose a much greater s.p.a.ce.

In the first play with the gift, the children's eyes, so keen in seeing play possibilities, quickly discover the value of the bricks in furniture-making, and set to work at once on tables and chairs, or bureaus and sofas and bedsteads.

They engage too in a lively contest with the law of equilibrium, and experiment long and patiently until they comprehend its practical workings.

When they understand the fourth gift fairly well, know the different faces and can handle the bricks with some dexterity, the third gift should be added and the two used together. They complement each other admirably, and give variety and strength to the building, whether forms of Life, Beauty, or Knowledge are constructed.

Froebel, however, is most emphatic in directing that each set of blocks should be given to the child in its own box, opened so as to present a whole at the first glance, and carefully rebuilt and packed away when the play is over. The cubes and bricks should never be left jumbled together at the close of the exercise, nor should they be kept in and returned to a common receptacle.

"Unimportant as these little rules may appear," he says, "they are essential to the clear and definite development of the child, to his orderly apprehension of external objects, and to the logical unfolding of his own concepts and judgments."

"The box of building blocks should be regarded by the child," he concludes, "as a worthy, an appreciated, and a loved comrade."

The mathematical forms are constructed and applied in precisely the same manner as before. The fourth gift, however, offers a far greater number of these than its predecessor, while it is particularly adapted to show that objects identical in form and size may be produced in quite different ways.

Throughout all these guided plays, it should be remembered that time is always to be allowed the child for free invention, that the kindergartner should talk to him about what he has produced so that his thought may be discovered to himself,[45] and that in all possible ways Group work should be encouraged in order that his own strength and attainments may be multiplied by that of his playfellows and swell the common stock of power. Froebel, the great advocate of the "Together" principle says, "Isolation and exclusion destroy life; union and partic.i.p.ation create life."[46]

[45] "The child is allowed the greatest possible freedom of invention; the experience of the adult only accompanies and explains."--Froebel's _Pedagogics_, page 130.

[46] _Pedagogics_, page 180.

It is perhaps needless to say that the philosophical laws which govern the outward manifestations of a moving force, as equilibrium or self-propagating activity, are for personal study, and are never to be spoken of abstractly to the child, but merely to be ill.u.s.trated with simple explanations.

Transmitted Motion.

To show simply the law of transmitted motion, for instance, let the child place his eight bricks on end, in a row, one half inch apart, with their broad faces toward each other. Then ask him to give the one at the right a very gentle push towards the others and see what will happen; the result is probably as great a delight as you could reasonably wish to put within his reach.

When he asks, "What makes them do so?" as every thoughtful child is apt to do, let us ask the cla.s.s the same question and set them thinking about it. "Which brick did it?" we may say familiarly, and they will see it all in a moment,--where the force originated, how it gave itself to the next brick in order, that one in turn doing the same, and so on.

This law of transmitted motion, when so simply ill.u.s.trated in the fourth gift, easily suggests to the children the force of example, and indeed every physical law seems to have its correlate in the moral world. We may make the children see it very clearly through the seven poor, weak little bricks that fell down because they were touched by the first one. They really could not help it; now, how about seven little boys or girls? They can help doing things, can they not?

By such simple exercises and appropriate comments the children may be made to realize their moral free agency.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Kindergarten at Home. _Emily s.h.i.+rreff_. Pages 58-61.

Kindergarten Culture. _W. N. Hailmann_. 66.

Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by _Mary Gurney_. 23, 24.

Kindergarten Guide. _J_. and _B. Ronge_. 13-24.

Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. _Fr. Froebel_. 166-95.

Paradise of Childhood. _Edward Wiebe_. 17-19.

Kindergarten Guide. _Kraus-Boelte_. 47-81.

Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. _H. Courthope Bowen_.

141, 142.

Kindergarten Toys. _H. Hoffmann_. 27-30.

FROEBEL'S FIFTH GIFT

"The material for making forms increases by degrees, progressing according to law, as Nature prescribes. The simple wild rose existed before the double one was formed by careful culture. Children are too often overwhelmed with quant.i.ty and variety of material that makes formation impossible to them."

"The demand of the new gift, therefore, is that the oblique line, hitherto only transiently indicated, shall become an abiding feature of its material."

"In the forms made with the fifth gift there rules a living spirit of unity. Even members and directions which are apparently isolated are discovered to be related by significant connecting members and links, and the whole shows itself in all its parts as one and living,--therefore, also, as a life-rousing, life-nurturing, and life-developing totality." FR. FROEBEL.

1. The fifth gift is a three-inch cube, which, being divided equally twice in each dimension, produces twenty-seven one-inch cubes. Three of these are divided into halves by one diagonal cut, and three others into quarters by two diagonal cuts crossing each other, making in all thirty-nine pieces, twenty-one of which are whole cubes, the same size as those of the third gift.

2. The fifth gift seems to be an extension of the third, from which it differs in the following points:--

The third gift is a two-inch cube, the fifth a three-inch cube; the third is divided once in each dimension, the fifth twice. In the third all the parts are like each other and like the whole; in the fourth, they are like each other but unlike the whole; and in the fifth they are not only for the most part unlike each other, but eighteen of them are unlike the whole.

The third gift emphasized vertical and horizontal divisions producing entirely rectangular solids; the fifth, by introduction of the slanting line and triangular prism, extends the element of form. In the third gift, the slanting direction was merely implied in a transitory way by the position of the blocks; in the fifth it is definitely realized by their diagonal division.

In number, the third gift emphasized two and multiples of two; the fifth is related to the fourth in its advance in complexity of form and mathematical relations.

3. The most important characteristics of the gift are: introduction of diagonal line and triangular form; division into thirds, ninths, and twenty-sevenths; ill.u.s.tration of the inclined plane and cube-root. As a result of these combined characteristics, it is specially adapted to the production of symmetrical forms.

It includes not only multiplicity, but, for the first time, diversity of material.

4. The fifth gift realizes a higher unity through a greater variety than has been ill.u.s.trated previously. It corresponds with the child's increasing power of a.n.a.lysis; it offers increased complexity to satisfy his growing powers of creation, and less definitely suggestive material in order to keep pace with his developing individuality.

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

{ Cube.

{ Rectangular Parallelopiped.

{ Square Prism.

{ Triangular Prism.

Solids. { Rhomboidal Prism.

{ Trapezoidal Prism.

{ Pentagonal Prism.

{ Hexagonal Prism.

{ Heptagonal Prism.