Friedrich Fröbel is known as the founder of the modern kindergarten and for his development of novel learning materials called Gifts and Occupations. One of the foci of Fröbel's programme was mathematical education, which he addressed and taught through various activities that encouraged the largely implicit transmission of mathematical…

The following paper continues the previous part, and examines the influence of crystallography on Fröbel's conception of mathematics. In this part we focus on yet unpublished material. These unpublished notes of Fröbel underline the visual transfer of drawing and images of crystals, mainly developed by Haüy, which were widespread at the turn of…

Visual evidence offered by a set of previously unexamined photographic images taken at Stanmore Public School in Sydney, Australia in 1919 informs this paper which considers the images' purpose, construction, content, use, and reception. It endorses arguments that visual evidence combines with other sources to tell a richer history, and that…

This contribution looks at the garden that Friedrich Froebel (1782--1852) founded in Bad Blankenburg in 1838 in order to understand the proposal presented at the Kindergarten Model School of Madrid for training teachers in 1879 (the Schools introduced new teaching methods or systems and, at the same time, trained the teachers in their…

This study examines how origami has been implemented, practised, and developed in the early childhood education of Japan over the past 140 years. Historically speaking, paper-folding has been part of Japanese symbolic art, craft culture, and religious ceremonial artefacts since paper and paper-folding techniques were first imported from China…

This article aims to present the transformations as well as the decline of the Froebelian occupation of paper folding that took place in Great Britain between 1851 and the 1920s. Froebel's original intention was to transmit implicit mathematical knowledge to be learnt by means of folding several shapes. In contrast to his account of paper folding,…

This paper focuses on the "Junkyard" ("chatzar grutaot")--a unique educational environment and practice developed in kindergartens on the Israeli kibbutz in the 1940s and 1950s, and still in wide use today in kibbutz kindergartens. The Junkyard, consisting of artefacts of the adult world that are no longer in use, is an…

This is a study of the contribution of Christian missionaries to kindergarten education in the Empire of Japan. The study concerns an American Missionary woman, Annie L. Howe (1852-1943) and her kindergarten in Kobe, Japan. Annie L. Howe had a great impact on the history of early childhood education and is still remembered as the "Mother of…

This article examines the educational concepts that were pursued for the benefit of underprivileged children in the era of the New Education Movement. Children's rights in Japanese modernity, as represented by the struggle to apply New Education principles to underprivileged children, are contrasted with the conventional view of childhood in the…

The long-time Prussian/German Crown Princess Victoria (1840-1901), known after her husband's death as the Empress Frederick, played an important role as patroness of and advocate for many forms of academic and vocational education for girls and women. This article examines her work for various institutions in Berlin as well as her homeland. It…

Using a transnational framework, this paper focuses on four graduates of Gipsy Hill Training College (GHTC) for nursery school teachers in London, United Kingdom, in the early to mid-twentieth century. Firstly, I explore GHTC's progressive ideals and highlight ways in which its principal, Lillian de Lissa, encouraged students to "think…

This article explores the process by which different elements of the material culture of educational settings, including learning tools, classroom design and other aspects of the physical environment that embody a particular educational philosophy, become transmuted when taken over by those with very different pedagogical aims. The article focuses…