3. If the mother is sewing on a colored dress, let the child try to pick out the ball resembling it in color.
4. Play hiding the ball, as in hide the thimble.
5. Play store, letting him tell you which ball will best represent a lemon, an orange, a red apple, etc.
Second Gift Plays
Throughout his life, Froebel felt with keen pain all that was discordant or inharmonious in human society. Beneath all differences and misunderstandings lay, he believed, the possibility of adjustment, or reconciliation. Relations most strained might be brought into harmonious union. This great idea is typified by the second gift. The hard wooden sphere is round, curved from all points of view, with no angles or edges, and is easily moved. The cube is a complete contrast to the sphere, inasmuch as it stands firmly, has flat faces, angles, and edges. The cylinder combines the characteristics and possibilities of the other two. It has flat faces as well as a curved one, and can both stand and roll. It forms a bond of connection between the other two which at first sight seem irreconcilable.
Three of these forms have small staples inserted in side, edge, and angle so that they may be suspended, swung, and revolved. There are also perforations through each one admitting the insertion of the axles, when needed for certain plays.
If an axle be put through cube or cylinder and it be revolved rapidly, you can see, in the swift moving figure, the spirit, as it were, of the other forms—an experiment fascinating to young and old.
A little imagination will turn the box in which these blocks come, into a boat, car, engine, etc., pins, matches, tacks, wire, etc., being called in as extras.
The little wooden beam may be placed across, held up by the axles and upon this the blocks may be suspended as objects for sale in a store.
The box with its cover may be used to illustrate the three primary mechanical principles, the pulley, or wheel, the inclined plane, and the lever. The pulley is made by placing the cylinder on an axle, tying a little weight to one end of a cord and drawing it up over the cylinder. Let the child play the weight is a bucket of water being drawn up from a well.