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The Art of Teaching Play: A Phenomenology of Froebel’s Gifts in Practice

Title:

The Art of Teaching Play: A Phenomenology of Froebel’s Gifts in Practice

Crawford, Elora ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-6020-159X (2025) The Art of Teaching Play: A Phenomenology of Froebel’s Gifts in Practice. Masters thesis, Concordia University.

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Abstract

This research explores the art and education history of Kindergarten gift play, a guided activity with abstract blocks and learning objects. Through a phenomenological inquiry, it asks: what is the essence of teaching through play with the Froebel Gifts? Its presentation of Gift Play object-interviews with former teachers at the Froebel Education Centre in Mississauga, Ontario, encounter both abstract and concrete constructions: first, Kindergarten’s 19th-century educational beliefs and practices as first introduced by its German founder, educational reformer Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852); and second, the concrete and symbolic Kindergarten system of Gifts and Occupations, objects and guided activities for learning through play. Hermeneutic phenomenology and posthumanist object-interview heuristics structure a holistic, multi-dimensional, and material-sensitive description of the ‘essence’ of ‘teaching play’ and ‘gifts’ as lived and as living, reanimated in renewed understandings of Froebel’s gifts, to pedagogy, and to the art of play.

Divisions:Concordia University > Faculty of Fine Arts > Art Education
Item Type:Thesis (Masters)
Authors:Crawford, Elora
Institution:Concordia University
Degree Name:M.A.
Program:Art Education
Date:6 July 2025
Thesis Supervisor(s):Vaughan, Kathleen and Blair, Lorrie
Keywords:Froebel Gifts; Phenomenology; Object Interviews; Play-based Pedagogy; Kindergarten; Friedrich Froebel
ID Code:996001
Deposited By: Elora Crawford
Deposited On:04 Nov 2025 15:05
Last Modified:04 Nov 2025 15:05

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