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Friedrich Froebel

Friedrich Froebel is considered the founder of kindergarten. He saw play as essential to children's learning and development, not just preparation for work. He developed a carefully planned curriculum using specific materials he created, including blocks. His program centered on play and sensory awareness to bring children closer to God. He observed that early childhood, from birth to age 3, was critical for brain development. His theories emphasized multiple intelligences, play-based and child-centered learning, and parent involvement.

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666 views2 pages

Friedrich Froebel

Friedrich Froebel is considered the founder of kindergarten. He saw play as essential to children's learning and development, not just preparation for work. He developed a carefully planned curriculum using specific materials he created, including blocks. His program centered on play and sensory awareness to bring children closer to God. He observed that early childhood, from birth to age 3, was critical for brain development. His theories emphasized multiple intelligences, play-based and child-centered learning, and parent involvement.

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REM ROB
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Friedrich Froebel

Froebel strongly stressed the important role of play in young children’s development, not merely as
preparation for adult work. He saw play as a pure and natural mode of learning through which children
receive harmony. Froebel developed a carefully programmed curriculum and specific materials. He is, in
fact, credited with developing blocks, now a standard early childhood material. His program was
centered on play and sensory awareness.

Essa, Eva L. (1999). Introduction to early childhood education instructor’s annotated edition - 3rd
edition. Delmar Publishers, 108.

He is known as the Father of Kindergarten. In his book Education of Man, he wrote: “Play is the highest
phase of child development – the representation of the inner necessity and impulse.” Froebel’s
kindergartens included blocks, pets, and fingerplays. He developed the first educational toys, which he
termed “gifts,” objects that demonstrate various attributes such as color or size), and arranged them in
a special order that would assist the child’s development. His theories influenced Montessori and were
reflected in the educational materials she developed.

Gordon, Ann Miles & Browne, Kathryn. (1996) Beginning essentials in early childhood education.
Thomson Delmar Learning, 8-9.

After trying a number of occupations and teaching at several levels, Froebel concluded that the early
years of life, those on which the foundation for the later years were built, were the most critical. Play
was education, and at the center of everything was the need to bring the child to unity with God
(Froebel, 1887).

Seefeldt, Carol & Barbour, Nita. (1986). Early childhood education An introduction. Merill Publishing,
8-9.

Froebel's Kindergarten Curriculum Method & Educational Philosophy

Kindergarten was the first organized early-childhood educational method. As a keen observer of nature
and humanity, Froebel approached human education from both a biological and a spiritual perspective.
Froebel discovered that brain development is most dramatic between birth and age three, and
recognized the importance of beginning education earlier than was then practiced. The number of
innovations that Froebel pioneered through his research is startling, and includes multiple intelligences
(different learning styles), play-based, child-centered, holistic education, parent involvement/training,
educational paperfolding, use of music, games, and movement activities for education.
Play Is the Engine of Real Learning
Froebel concluded that play is not idle behavior but a biological imperative to discover how things work. It
is pleasurable activity, but biologically purposeful. Froebel sought to harness this impulse and focus a
child's play energy on specific activities designed to lead them to create meaning from their experiences.

"The play of children is not recreation; it means earnest work. Play is the purest intellectual
production of the human being, in this stage … for the whole man is visible in them, in his finest
capacities, in his innermost being." ~ Friedrich Froebel
Froebel Gifts. Accessed on October 2, 2019 at http://www.froebelgifts.com/method.htm

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