Froebel Gifts
Select a gift from the left to see detailed information
or scroll down to learn more about Froebel
About
Friedrich Froebel (usually pronounced "froy-bel") was born in central Germany in 1782. A deeply spiritual man and a scientist, Froebel was heading toward a career in mineralogy and crystallography when he was drawn into the field of education.
Froebel's work lead to his invention of kindergarten - the concept that children should be nurtured from an early age, like new shoots on a plant. Through this metaphor, he coined the term "kinder-garten" or "garden of children." What Friedrich Froebel did was more than the coining of the word kindergarten or promoting the idea of preschool education. His contribution to education was not merely the founding of a school or the writing of a few books on education or philosophy.
His gift to the world was to point us in the right direction for educating our children and ourselves. The Froebel Gifts are part of his vision, a profound understanding of relationships between intelligence, the physical world, and our spiritual nature. The power and simplicity of his ideas is obvious, and the validity of his intuitions about learning can now be proven scientifically.
But the most profound aspect of his work is his trust and admiration for the perfect order of the universe. Each child is a unique creation waiting for the proper nourishment to unfold his/her potential. Froebel saw no higher calling than to become a gardener of humanity.
Theory
Froebel felt it was of paramount importance to allow children
to draw their own conclusions rather than to be provided
with answers. He disliked elaborate toys that discouraged
creativity and discovery. For Froebel, less was more.
Froebel's method allows children more freedom to
experience and the chance to learn at their own pace at the
time of their most rapid intellectual development. He favored
bookless or "symbolic" learning through the handling of
materials, in what he called objective play or play "with the
thing in itself." Froebel saw that important learning was done
through play and play is the engine for his whole educational
system. Play is a child's work. And what child needs
prompting to play?
Froebel materials are a method and a system of toys for achieving this goal. The Froebel Gifts are designed to stimulate all five senses (which are considered the doors to the child's inner world) while aiding understanding and language through discussion and song. Froebel wanted to "awaken the senses" to the "God-given structure" of the universe and to help children perceive the unity and interconnectedness of all creation. The ultimate idea is that all things - art (beauty), science (knowledge) and nature (the physical world) - are fundamentally related and interconnected.
Gifts
The entire series of materials have been numbered 1
through 20, and are divided into two categories: Gifts and
Occupations. Materials 1 through 10 are referred to as Gifts.
These are not "destroyed" when used, but returned to their
original state and stored in the boxes. Conceptually, Gifts 1
to 6 can be thought to represent solids (3-D), Gift 7 to
represent surface (2-D), Gift 8 to represent line, Gift 9 to
represent point, and Gift 10 to represent point and line. They
represent a logical progression from the whole (unity) into
parts (complexity) and a return to the whole. This idea of
starting with the whole and moving out into the complexity of the parts is an important part of Froebel's philosophy.
A child never completes or is finished with a Gift, he/she just becomes ready for a different Gift. Because children bring their own experiences to Gift Play, the same Gift can be used for as long as three or four weeks at a time, interspersed with play using different Gifts. A child will never exhaust all the possibilities of a Gift and each may be returned to at any time.
Occupations
Materials 11 through 20 have been called Occupations. These can be thought of as complementary crafts such as sewing, origami, and modeling clay, which one would not return to its original form. The use of the word Occupations for these crafts emphasizes the connection between abstract play (art/knowledge) and the useful work of everyday life.