"The properties of number, form, and size, the knowledge of
space, the nature of powers, the effects of material, begin
to disclose themselves to him. Color, rhythm, tone, and
figure come forward at the budding-point and in their
individual value. The child begins already to distinguish
with precision nature and the world of art, and looks with
certainty upon the outer world as separate from himself."
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL.
"Froebel's thin colored planes correspond with the mosaic
wood or stone work of early man." H. POESCHE.
"There is nothing in the whole present system of education
more deserving of serious consideration than the sudden and
violent transition from the material to the abstract which
our children have to go through on quitting the parental
house to enter a school. Froebel therefore made it a point
to bridge over this transition by a whole series of
play-material, and in this series it is the laying-tablets
which occupy the first place." H. GOLDAMMER.
1. The seventh gift consists of variously colored square and
triangular tablets made of wood or pasteboard, the sides of the pieces
being about one inch in length. Circular and oblong pasteboard tablets
have lately been introduced, as well as whole and half circles in
polished woods.
2. The first six gifts illustrated solids, while the seventh, moving
from the concrete towards the abstract, makes the transition to the
surface.
The Building Gifts presented to the child divided units, from which
he constructed new wholes. Through these he became familiar with the
idea of a whole and parts, and was prepared for the seventh gift,
which offers him not an object to transform, but independent elements
to be combined into varied forms. These divided solids also offered
the child a certain fixed amount of material for his use; after the
introduction of the seventh gift, the amount to be used is optional
with the kindergartner.
3. The child up to this time has seen the surface in connection with
solids. He now receives the embodied surface separated from the solid,
and gradually abstracts the general idea of "surface," learning to
regard it not only as a part, but as an individual whole.
This gift also emphasizes color and the various triangular forms,
besides imparting the idea of pictorial representation, or the
representation of objects by means of plane surfaces.
4. The gift leads the child from the object itself towards the
representation of the object, thus sharpening the observation and
preparing the way for drawing.
It is also less definitely suggestive than previous gifts, and demands
more creative power for its proper use. It appeals to the sense of
form, sense of place, sense of color, and sense of number.