In the garden of this Free Kindergarten there is a large sand-pit, surrounded by a low wooden framework, and having a pole across the middle so that it resembles a cucumber frame and a cover can be thrown over the sand to keep it clean when not in use. Froebel's own list of playthings contains, besides balls and building blocks, coloured beads, coloured tablets for laying patterns, coloured papers for cutting, folding and plaiting; pencils, paints and brushes; modelling clay and sand; coloured wool for sewing patterns and pictures; and such little sticks and laths as children living in a forest region find for themselves. Considered in themselves, apart from the traditions of formality, these are quite good play material or stimuli, and Froebel meant the time to come "when we shall speak of the doll and the hobby horse as the first plays of the awakening life of the girl and the boy," but he died before he had done so. In the _Mother Songs_, too, we find quite a good list of toys which are now to be found in most Kindergartens. Toys for the playground should be provided--a sand-heap, a seesaw, a substantial wheel-barrow, hoops, balls, reins and perhaps skipping-ropes. Something on which the child can balance, logs or planks which they can move about, and a trestle on which these can be supported, are invaluable. It was while an addition was being made to our place that we realised the importance of such things, and, as in Froebel's case, "our teachers were the children themselves." They were so supremely happy running up and down the plank roads laid by the builders for their wheel-barrows, seesawing or balancing and sliding on others, that we could not face the desolation of emptiness which would come when the workmen removed their things. So, for a few pounds, all that the children needed was secured, ordinary planks for seesawing, narrower for balancing and a couple of trestles. One exercise the children had specially enjoyed was jumping up and down on yielding planks, and this the workmen had forbidden because the planks might crack. But a sympathetic foreman told us what was needed: two planks of special springy wood were fastened together by cross pieces at each end, and besides making excellent slides, these made most exciting springboards. For representations of real life the children require dolls and the simplest of furniture--a bed, which need only be a box, some means of carrying out the doll's washing, her personal requirements as well as her clothes; some little tea-things and pots and pans. A doll's house is not necessary, and can only be used by two or three children, but will be welcomed if provided, and its appointments give practice in dainty handling. Trains and signals of some kind, home-made or otherwise; animals for farm or Zoo; a pair of scales for a shop, and some sort of delivery van, which, of course, may be home-made.