• Archives of design research
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.393-402
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• 2004

The Gifts that Freobel devised in 1837 were the first instructional media using concrete and systematic toys as materials for early childhood education. The shapes of hexahedrons, cylinders and balls and conception of point, line, plane and six colors shown in the forms of Freobel's Gifts are the basics of formative elements in modem design. However, the Gifts, or educational toys, which were presented to practice Freobel's educational ideas actually in the educational fields were hardly examined or analyzed from the viewpoint of design. In this study, the structural principles, which were applied to the plastic formation of the Gifts under the influence of Freobel's educational philosophy, are examined by analyzing the visual formative characteristics of Freobel's Gifts. Accordingly, through an analysis on the formative principles of the Gifts, it is studied how a system of abstract and philosophical thought was visually applied to forms. This study is a probing research on the formative characteristics presented in the Gifts and is an investigation of formation theory about geomatrice forms. The effects and problems of the formative features of teaching materials for little children are also examined from the viewpoint of design in this study.