Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychologyMurray, E. R. (Elsie Riach)
Science
Froebel as a pioneer in modern psychology
Murray, E. R. (Elsie Riach)
Fröbel, Friedrich, 1782-1852; Psychology
For Sensations of Contact there is the Kicking Play, and Taste and Smell
are also represented in the Mother Play book. For Hearing play we have
the wooden ball, “a plaything for the child liable to produce noise by
its movement,” as well as the Tic-tac and Finger Piano plays, and for
receptive play, the mother is told to speak, rhythmically if possible,
or to sing with every play. For Sensations of Brightness we have “Mother
you want to foster this delight in all things that are sparkling clear
and bright” of the “Fish in the Brook,” as well as “The Lightbird,” which
Froebel has “found over and over again in all grades of the culture that
makes up social life in village and in town.”
Sensations of colour are well provided for. In “The Two Windows” we have:
“See the beautiful coloured circles and rays, just like rainbow and
dew-drops, see how beautifully the colours play through each other.”
Colour is a feature in Gift I, in beadwork, in the tablets, in paper
folding, cutting and plaiting, and besides these there are crayons and
paints, and frequent reference is made to the child’s pleasure in the
colour of flowers.
Froebel also makes much play depend on perception of form: “Attention to
the form and figure of the object can also be utilized for the child in
play,” or, again, “Early in life the child delights in round and varied
pebbles, he seeks and collects them, he takes pleasure in the straight
edged and right angled.” He has found “The Target” play very widely
spread, “plainly because it contains, as I see it, the first trace of an
endeavour to make a child notice position and form.”
For perception of movement, to which Froebel would have added perception
of change of position, there are many plays with the ball as well as
“Tic-tac,” “The Child and the Pigeons,” “The Lightbird,” “The Fish in the
Brook,” etc.
Groos’ next class is Play with the Motor Apparatus and under this comes
first Playful movement of the Bodily Organs. Here we have Froebel saying:
“The first toys and occupations of the child come from himself: he plays
with his own limbs.”--_L., p. 108._ “The child at this stage begins to
play with his limbs--his hands, his fingers, his lips, his tongue, his
feet, as well as with the expression of his eyes and face.”--_E., p. 48._
Under playful locomotion, Groos actually quotes Froebel’s description
of the child learning to walk, and we have also marching, running, and
racing games; “the large majority,” says Froebel, “I have created simply
by watching the children at play.… Thus I have prepared a limping-game
because I see my boys always limping and hopping.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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