Excellent exercises or suggestions for building can be found in
Ronge's "Kindergarten Guide." He mentions one pleasant little play
which I will quote. "When each in the class has produced a different
form, let the children rise and march round the table to observe the
variety." Let them sing in the ascending and descending scales:--
Many pretty forms I see,
Which one seems the best to me?
At another time let each child try to build the house he lives in,
and while this is being done, let them join in singing some song about
home. It is well to encourage singing during the building exercises,
as we have so many appropriate selections.[40]
[40] See _Kindergarten Chimes_ (Kate D. Wiggin), Oliver
Ditson Publishing Co.: "Building Song," pages 34, 35; "Trade
Game," page 70; "The Carpenter," page 92.
Group Work.
With the first of the Building Gifts enters a new variety of group
work, which was not adapted for the first and second gifts. The
children may now be seated at square tables, one at each side, and
build in unison in the centre, the form produced being of course four
times as large and fine as any one of the number could have produced
alone. All the suggestions or directions for building are necessarily
carried out together, and the success of the completed form is
obviously dependent on the cooperation of all four children. Forms of
Beauty are very easily constructed in this manner, as well as forms of
Life, having four uniform sides, and when the little ones are somewhat
more expert builders, Life forms having opposite sides alike, or even
four different sides, may be constructed.
The other various forms of cooperative work are of course never to be
neglected, that a social unity may be produced, in which "the might of
each individual may be reinforced by the might of the whole."