The sixth gift lends itself peculiarly to buildings of a certain type. It expresses less strength and more grace than the preceding ones.
In playing with these "gifts" under direction of a teacher, the child, if making the grocery store, proceeds to make the counter, the scales, the money desk, etc., in succession, and is not allowed to take the first structure apart in disorderly fashion and then make the next one, but is supposed to build the counter, or other article, by gradually transforming the thing already made, removing the blocks in ones, or twos, or threes in an orderly way. Each block is supposed to have some relation to the whole. For instance if a shoe store has been made and one unused block remains, it may represent the footstool used in such a store.
Froebel thought in this way through simple play to help the child little by little to feel the relatedness of all life.
Seventh Gift Plays
With the seventh gift tablets the child makes designs or "beauty forms," becoming familiar with certain geometrical forms and exercising his powers of invention in pleasing design.
In using the tablets, which are in both light and dark stains, do not give too many at first. Give him for instance one circle, representing a picture of a ball, and let him lay a row of such for a frieze design for a gymnasium.
Give a circle and four squares, and let him place one above, one below, one to the right and one to the left, touching the circle. This will suggest a unit for a tile for a playroom fireplace.
Tell him to change the top square so that its angle touches the circle; then change the lower one in the same way; then the right, then the left. This transformation gives an entirely new design.
The other tablets may be employed in the same way, the different kinds of triangles offering opportunity for much variety.
Eighth Gift Plays