using blocks to remove blocks

During our teacher in service training some of our teachers were intrigued by the use of Froebel's gifts 3 & 4 to convey emotions, as shown in the video of architecture students making and using the blocks at Miami University. One of our teachers came up with the idea of allowing the students to build what they feel.

In the History of Kindergarten video, John Reynold's architecture students use the blocks to respond to word prompts, thus using arrangements of the blocks to convey various emotions. Our teachers decided that by allowing the students to express their feelings through blocks, the usual language block that makes it hard to describe what we feel, might fall away. Build it first, thus using the concrete to express the abstract. One of our students when asked to use the blocks from gift 4 to express fear, arranged them into a straight line separating one side from the other.

Teacher interest led me to prepare a number of sets numbers 3 and 4 to share with various classes. They are roughly and quickly done and will improve with sanding. I made 13 number 4 gifts and 9 number 3.

Make, fix, create and insist that others be allowed to learn likewise.