clamps and kindergarten

I  was contacted by a museum in the UK planning a 5-7 year display and wanting to use this image that I'd first posted to the blog in 2008. It is a free image from the New York Public Library Digital Collection. And you can see that it displays Froebel's construction gifts, including blocks of a much larger size. That all of the intricate constructions are in a relatively perfect form suggests that they were assembled by adults in staging this photo.

Anyone with experience working with kids will know that meeting such a high level of photographic perfection would be impossible if left up to 5-year-olds,who in this case have been ever so patient as the teachers and photographer were working toward posing them in the near perfect shot.

I had some fun today making simple clamps for box making that you can make yourself. These are made with 1/4 in. threaded rod, plastic knobs and wood. One end of the threaded rod fits into a hex nut buried in the wood. Though crudely made, these work great, and certainly as well as expected.

I ran across the following in reference to Froebel and his expectations with regard to how others might use his work:

Froebel, the founder of the kindergarten, was himself opposed to the term Froebelian. The master's hand is often seen in what may on the surface appear his very inconsistencies. "Personal following," Froebel declared, "separates; principles alone unite. Follow the principles I have indicated, but not me. I am but a weak exponent of the dawn of insight into that principle, and you who do this work must see to it more clearly than I have done."

Make, fix, create, and extend to others the joy of learning likewise.