Standing on a hill outside of Keilhau, now called Froebelblick, as he contemplated his new conceptual framework for a school for the very young child, Froebel coined the term "kindergarten." In 1839, he opened the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg. A man of many failures, at last he had found his life's most important work. Villagers called him an old fool who played with children (Von Marienholtz-Bulow, 1877). Undaunted, he spent years refining the conc

At the Keilhau School today, the classrooms extend beyond their walls to the outdoors, where one can find a lily pond, an outdoor "circle time" seating area, a blacksmith shop, an outdoor brick oven where the children cook, a sensory walkway with seven different textured steps, and a gazebo. Certainly, Froebel would be pleased with this garden-like atmosphere and the emphasis on play, for he believed that

Building on Pestalozzi's idea of "things before words," Froebel gave children early sensory experiences with blocks and other objects to generate language through play. Froebel believed that learning would occur naturally if the child held an object, observed the object from all sides, and compared it with other objects (Adelman, 2000). In The Education of Man, Froebel states that "therefore the child would know himself why he loves the thing; he would know all its properties, its innermost nature, that he may learn to understand himself in his attachment" (Froebel, 1826/ 1887, p. 73). As I held a block in my hand, I was reminded of Frank Lloyd Wright's suggestion that he never forgot the feeling of the smooth maple kindergarten blocks in his hands (Brosterman, 1997). Certainly, as the blocks of Keilhau testify, Froebel's blocks remain a very important gift to the world of early childhood education.

play is the purest, most spiritual activity of man at this stage, and at the same time, typical of human life as a whole--of the inner hidden natural life in man and all things. I

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