Friedrich Fröbel’s Kindergarten – Being Parents

Friedrich Fröbel was a German pedagogue and he created the concept of “kindergarten”. He was born on April 21, 1782 in Germany. Kindergartens correspond to an educational program developed by Fröbel. This program is based on the need for educational attention of the preschool child from play.

Fröbel is considered by many to be the founder of children’s education. Indeed, he was responsible for the reflection and structuring of this educational stage according to specific criteria, methodologies, resources and teaching materials.

History of Friedrich Fröbel’s kindergarten

First of all, kindergarten appears to be an alternative to the reform of traditional preschool education. In other words, as a way to break with a model of overcrowded schools with closed architecture. The latter do not take into account direct contact between children and their natural environment.

In addition, Fröbel also reconsiders the structure of the family and its educational practices. According to him, they should be reinforced by education in the public and professional sectors of an institution.

Fröbel was a disciple of Pestalozzi, who delegated much of the responsibility of raising children to women and the household. On the other hand, Fröbel, while starting from this initial idea, also defends an education which would continue outside the family environment.

Therefore, according to Fröbel’s point of view, in addition to an educational function assigned to women, as Pestalozzi argues, a public institution should take over the training of preschool children.

Kindergarten therefore represented a compromise between the education of children at home and that provided in an institution. By limiting its reception to three or four hours a day, the kindergarten was intended to complement and not to replace the family.

In 1837, he opened his first educational center for children. He will call it “kindergarten” three years later. He chose this name precisely because it was a place where children were seen as plants in a garden and where the teacher acted as a gardener.

Thus, his pedagogical ideas were developed and put into practice in kindergartens. Then kindergartens spread throughout Europe and in various countries of the world, until today.

Main features of kindergartens

The main objective of kindergartens is to offer natural and inclusive education in an organized school space. However, it must be at the same time open, dynamic and flexible, but also allow children to grow and develop fully.

The educational methods of Fröbel used in kindergartens were first of all to support children in becoming aware of their relationship to the world and its diversity. Moreover, this awakening had to be done in permanent harmony. For example, through songs, games and the use of toys. They thus developed bodily expression and cooperation with others.

The discipline was to maintain the natural side of the child, not to restrict it. She attached particular importance to the spontaneous activity of the child. Thus, Fröbel aspires, through education, to an integral development of the child, by trying to make him:

• Active. It’s about awakening creative abilities through action and play. Indeed, they are the ones who connect them with the world around them.
• Sensitive. It helps to promote the perception and development of the child’s sensory organs. This is done in contact with the surrounding world, beings and objects that surround it.
• Cognitive. It represents the product of this contact with the surrounding world but also with the reality of everyday life.

The methodology of “gifts” for better learning in kindergarten

In order to achieve its educational objectives, Fröbel first of all developed a methodology based on the use of simple objects, called ‘gifts’. These were solid objects based on geometric figures (cube, cylinder and sphere). These objects are also of increasing complexity. For this, they were built in adapted teaching materials. This allowed the children to play and to carry out various didactic and educational activities.

Fröbel’s intention was that, thanks to these materials, children could acquire manual skills and develop their senses. At the same time, they learned to represent shapes, colors, movements, materials and their associations with words.

The “gifts” were characterized by their:

Color : six balls of wool in the colors of the rainbow.
Shape : wooden ball, cylinder and cube.
Number : a cube that can be disassembled into eight smaller cubes.
Extension : a cube to be disassembled into eight parallelepipeds.
Symmetry : a cube that can be disassembled into 27 cubes.
Proportion : a cube that can be dismantled into 27 small parallelepipedal cubes.
Surface : wooden slats, whole squares and half squares in different colors.
Lines and outlines : strips of different lengths, full metal circles, semicircles and quadrants, all in different colors.
Points : pebbles, lentils, peas, pieces of cardboard.
Reconstruction : sticks and balls of plasticine to return from the initial point to the geometric figure.

Latest observations

To achieve its educational goals, in addition to the games and the “gift” methodology, Fröbel has developed two other activities. These activities dedicated to children were “kinetic” games and “gardening”. With this, they completed the three areas of activities required in kindergartens.

Kinetic games were races, dances, and shows. Indeed, these allowed the child to develop his capacities of body movement.

Finally, “gardening” allowed the child to experience the evolution of a plant. He watched the process from planting to flowering, and realized the maintenance required to make this happen. Thus, through gardening, Fröbel sought to make the child discover his own nature.