Froebel's Playtime Analysis

Froebel’s playtime. Self-directed play, according to Froebel, is the most pure and natural way to learn (Froebel, 1887). Froebel held strongly to the belief that play is not an idle activity, but one that is essential to proper development.

Froebel (1887) stated: The play of children is not recreation; it means earnest work. Play is the purest intellectual production of the human being, in this stage … for the whole man is visible in them, in his finest capacities, in his innermost being (p. 31).

In Froebelian classrooms, therefore, children were encouraged to play in a variety of ways. Some play was guided by the kindergartner as the gifts were explored. Learning through play was the ultimate goal. For instance, when students participated

In 1856, Margarethe Schurz established a German-speaking kindergarten in the United States years later, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody opens the first English-speaking kindergarten. Ms. Peabody campaigned for public school kindergartens, and by 1880, there were over 400 kindergartens in 30 states (Cantor, 2013). The kindergarten schools embodied Froebelian beliefs, but to varying degrees. Although each had her own vision for kindergarten, all had common threads in the curricula, including building social competence, developing self-regulation, and learning through discovery and play. It wasn’t long, however, before conflicts between kindergarten and primary schools began to emerge. There was a dissonance between the methodologies used by kindergartners and those used by primary school teachers. Vanderwalker (1907) , a passionate advocate for public school kindergartens, suggested that having kindergarten as a part of elementary school had, in a few short years, already positively influences elementary school classrooms by adding art, music, games, and even nature study. Over the first three decades of the twentieth century, public school kindergarten would be redesigned to reflect the shifting goals and philosophies of the sponsors, both in private and public school settings (Spodek, 1981). One such philosophy shift was not so much a rejection of Froebel’s original kindergarten roots, but an extension of his core tenets. John Dewey understood and

Understanding how children think and interact with the world around them lead to the creation of educational practices that are deemed developmentally appropriate (Bredekamp, 2014). Effective instruction provided in kindergarten classrooms has its roots in cognitive learning theories in which development refers to “cognitive patterned changes over time” (Abu-Jaber, AL-Shawareb, & Gheith, 2010). These practices became the cornerstone of the kindergarten, first in Froebel’s Play and Activity Institute, and then throughout the world as more and more kindergarten schools were established. Likewise, American kindergartens have as the cornerstone of their practices the tenets of play and discovery learning (Brosterman 2014). Learning by discovery has its roots in the philosophy of Jean Jacque Rousseau, who believed that one cannot force knowledge; rather, children must be allowed to naturally develop and enjoy the early years of their life before they are ready to be formally educated (Macdonald, Rudkowski & Schärer, 2013). DAP encompasses Rousseau’s beliefs, and pertain to diverse areas of development for children from birth to age eight (Kim, 2011). In keeping with this idea, those advocates of early childhood education are the cornerstone of what has been deemed appropriate practice when creating an educational environment for young children. Providing an environment for optimal learning, an environment in which children can develop