Architecture

The Froebel Decade theme for 2019 will be dedicated to the impact Froebel’s philosophy had on art and architecture, especially his “gifts” and the mathematical aspects of his early childhood education concept.

The first building gift designed by Friedrich Froebel is eight cubes.

With the founding of a kindergarten teachers’ training school, Froebel was also seen as a supporter of women’s emancipation.

Geomag

alert_red Warning: CONTAINS STRONG MAGNETS. Keep away from sensitive devices such as credit cards, computers, magnetic media and medical devices like pacemakers.

Geomag’s Kor Eggs are 3D spherical magnetic playsets with 55 fully playable pieces, that quickly and firmly attach through the wondrous power of magnetism. The Kor Egg offers limitless creations.

Like all of Geomag’s award winning products, the Kor Egg is Swiss made to international safety standards.

Geomagworld SA has fostered simultaneous learning and creativity since 2008. All Geomag products are designed, developed, and produced in Switzerland and follow the highest European and American safety and quality standards.

At Geomag, their priority is designing toys that amuse and stimulate children’s sense of fantasy, curiosity, and creativity. Helping young minds hone their abstract problem solving and complex reasoning skills is crucial for their transition into functioning adults, and all Geomag products reflect that mentality.

softenpeas
Softened peas and sharpened sticks were used by Friedrich Froebel for children to make structures.

BRIO Builder

BRIO Builder is a unique, wooden based construction system where the child is the constructor!

Junior builders can create sturdy models with realistic details by using the interchangeable play pieces.

Beyond bricks and sticks, Brio Builder make things a child can actually play with!

Real construction, not just simple snap together; comes complete with a hammer, screwdriver, pliers and a wrench. Build a race car, jet plane, construction vehicle and more.

Your adventure is as broad as your imagination

• Helps promote creativity, imagination, fine motor skills and open ended play
• A fun way to practice hand eye coordination.

416kUcQ-FNL

BRIO Builder encourages children to build their own toys – either from their own imagination or from model pictures. When building, children exercise a number of skills; learning to sort and see patterns, all while making sense of the world around them.

Instruction manuals for all BRIO Builder products.

ages-anim-3-99

Tegu

Magnetic Wooden Building Blocks

alert_red WARNING – This product contains small magnets. Swallowed magnets can cause complications leading to serious infections and death. Seek immediate medical attention if magnets are swallowed or inhaled.

Brothers Chris and Will Haughey began with the simple notion that Honduras needed businesses which offered living wage jobs. Home to beautiful hardwoods, the country could have been the perfect spot for sustainably manufacturing any number of wooden products.

The brothers were inspired by classic wooden toys. Tegu blocks inspire children while addressing unemployment, neglected natural and human resources, and the need for entrepreneurship in Honduras.

“Children use toys to articulate meaning and substance,” says Will, explaining that blocks are the perfect medium because you can stack them into anything you want.

Tegu is positioned more as a high end specialty toy. “It’s definitely a niche product,” said Chris Byrne, who is known as “The Toy Guy” at a website that tracks the toy industry, “And there’s nothing like it in that niche.”

The innovative toys are “wonderfully tactile” and feel great to touch, Byrne said. ” They are kind of a work of art in themselves”, he said, “Something he would not be afraid to put on his coffee table”.

“Some parents like the idea of teaching their children about social issues through toys”, Byrne said. “In addition to the fun of play, it reinforces global responsibility.”

The blocks, which hearken back to traditional play gifts designed by Friedrich Froebel in their simplicity and craftsmanship, seek to unlock creativity in play by avoiding the overstimulation and prewritten scripts that come with so many elaborate mass produced toys.

The first building gifts designed by Friedrich Froebel

Chris and Will Haughey cite research linking imaginative “free play” to important cognitive development, and they seek to use Tegu blocks to open imaginative possibilities and facilitate long term learning.

5118sSmWXyL

Chris Haughey first travelled to the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa in the spring of 2004, to work with a group that was educating children living and working in an unregulated landfill used by the city as a giant dump. Shocked by a degree of poverty he had never witnessed firsthand before, Chris emailed his investment banker and hedge fund analyst brother Will and together they began dreaming of ways to bring a little of the kingdom of heaven to the impoverished nation of Honduras.

“We came from the capitalist mindset and were convinced we could do something to help,” Will noted in a Daily News interview. “Obviously we wanted to make money, but we also wanted to positively impact the local community.”

The brothers set about establishing a factory in Tegucigalpa seeking to bring “world class employment standards” by offering living wages and prioritizing big picture career growth over merely task based jobs to Honduras, the second poorest nation in Central America.

The Cube

A box containing eight cubes is the first building gift designed by Friedrich Froebel.

A child is given a cube, whose parts can be easily separated, and put together again with pleasure to restore the original form, a perfect cube.

By moving one cube at a time, a child can also construct of a variety of other forms and patterns.

source: Taking Apart and Putting Together Cubes AIMS

froebel8

Buy maple cubes online with PayPal, free shipping to continental USA.

Buy cubes in boxes online with PayPal, free shipping worldwide. Made in Germany from beech wood since 1835 to the original designs of Friedrich Froebel.

Paradise of Childhood

This practical guide to playing with the cubes and other play gifts designed by Friedrich Froebel has many illustrations can be read online

A free digitised version of Paradise of Childhood by Edward Wiebe, Edited by Milton Bradley London: George Phillip & Son Ltd., 1896 is available as a single PDF (74MB) at the Froebel Digital Collection.

Play Gifts

    Why Did Friedrich Froebel Sell Blocks?

    It all stems from the way he understood children. He believed that to accompany a child on the long, exciting, educational and at times complicated path to maturity is the most important task that anyone can undertake.

    He believed that this is the foundation upon which we can build a better life and a better future, at both a personal and collective level, with a society that is free, totally conscious, informed, demanding and respectful of everything that surrounds us.

    Blocks and play are vital during the formative years and throughout  life. Playing with blocks can help us all to achieve these objectives.

    InvNr F1086b

    Natural growth

    The way beech trees grow is something truly special. They multiply by “rejuvenation” which means that the trees propagate by themselves. No artificial irrigation or planting is required. Beechwood forests are a completely natural and sustainable source of raw material.

    Beechwood is known as a deep rooting plant. For this reason, beechwood has been known as the Mother of the Forest since the beginning of time. A typical beechwood forest is home to about 7,000 species of animals and is an important provider of raw materials. With around 250 well known fields of application, beechwood is the most versatile type of wood around.

    In 1850 S F Fischer began making the play gifts designed by Friedrich Froebel in the Erzgebirge mountains.