Froebel Fun!

The Froebelian gifts offer exceptional opportunity for concrete illustration of the conceptions of whole and part, through the creation of wholes from parts, and the breaking up of wholes into parts. This aspect of number is at least as important as the series aspect, which children get in counting and for which the Montessori "Long Stair" provides such good material. The Froebelian material may be used very readily for counting, however, and the Montessori material gives some slight opportunity for uniting and dividing. So far as preparation for arithmetic is concerned, a combination of the two bodies of material is both feasible and desirable.

 "Introduction." by Henry W. Holmes

From: The Montessori Method (1912) by Maria Montessori, translated by Anne Everett George. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1912. pp. xvii-xlii.

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