Norman Brosterman."
It was the book Inventing Kindergarten", with text by Norman Brosterman and photographs by Kiyoshi Togashi, that started me thinking about blocks. You can find this book on the web sites of the major booksellers. Both www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com offer extensive reviews and a twenty percent discount.
Brosterman tells the story of Friedrich Froebel, 1782-1852. who devised in the 1830s a program for educating children, including children three to seven years old, a group usually excluded from educational programs of that time.
Froebel was convinced that handicrafts could stimulate intellectual as well as physical development. His program included directed play with twenty sets of educational toys called "gifts." The early gifts are intended for small hands and simple tasks. The later gifts require more dexterity.
Brosterman suggests that the gifts may have influenced painters such as Klee and Mondrian, and architects such as Wright and Corbusier. He offers photographs that show how the works of these artists resemble the constructions of children using Froebel's gifts.
