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I am busy writing the  first two chapters of my book on Tiny boxes, but am also at that point in the book on making Froebel's gifts, that my editor has all kinds of wonderful questions about Kindergarten. The object of "Making Froebel's Gifts" is to inspire a whole new generation to get involved in object based creative teaching as was inspired by Froebel's invention of Kindergarten.

On that subject, Norm Brosterman, and Scott Bultman are planning to produce a documentary about the History of Kindergarten and its effects on the world of design, including the lives of Buckminster Fuller, Frank Lloyd Wright and so many others.

You can get information about their project and pledge to it through  their Kickstarter campaign. 

Brosterman is the author of the wonderful book, Inventing Kindergarten, and Scott Bultman is a long time enthusiast for Froebel's gifts. The video trailer for the Kickstarter campaign is compelling  and I hope my readers will step forward to help. If I could make one single change in American education, it would be to return schooling at all levels to what Froebel had in mind. The first step is to develop a renewed interest in Froebel, and to help Americans at all levels understand what Kindergarten was intended to be in the first place.

Kindergarten came to the attention of the American public during the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876, at which manual arts training was also introduced. There a "Kindergarten Cottage" allowed thousands of visitors to witness and become enthralled by the Kindergarten method. It is my hope that Brosterman and Bultman 's History of Kindergarten will have the exact same effect, and launch a thousand new Kindergartens of the type Friedrich Froebel had in mind.

On a similar subject, the Pediatric Academic Society presented data at their annual meeting, that American Kindergartners watch an average of 3.3 hours of TV per day. The study indicated also that youngsters who watched "more than one hour of TV daily are more likely to be obese than children with less screen time." At one time children played with blocks and played out of doors, and we've chosen for them to do diddly squat and endangered their health and their creativity at the same time.

On another subject, I have been asked about wood working classes for an 11 year old boy, whose mother told me that he is absolutely enthralled by woodworking. She wants to give him the support he needs and that she herself feels inadequate to supply. I have invited them to attend a meeting of the Stateline Woodturners at the Jones Center in Springdale this next Saturday. At that meeting, I will make a presentation on the principles and elements of design, as illustrated by a collection of wooden boxes.

Make, fix and create...