SAMARA EDUCATION SERIES
Spring 2001
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Frank Lloyd Wright's Use of
Building Materials
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Frank Lloyd Wright's Original Materials
Wally Rogers
Interpreter
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Wallace J. Rogers
Frank Lloyd Wright's SAMARA:
Winged Seeds of Indiana
Photograph by Suzie Coles
© 2001 John E. Christian Family Memorial Trust
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Nature, Knowledge and Beauty Forms
Froebel Gifts were not ever intended for free play, but rather for the creation of three forms - nature, knowledge and beauty. Children discovered Nature forms in every Gift made from different materials of each Occupation. For example, wooden blocks were arranged on tables lined with one-inch square grids to represent abstracted objects observed in the garden.
Paper triangles and squares were used to create patterns and designs of real objects found in the garden and in the imagination of every child. Songs, dances, plays and stories were created by the children about their abstractions in such a way that the abstractions and the real objects became commonplace or a matter of fact.
Stories and extended activities about the nature forms created from any single Gift or combination of Gifts lead naturally to knowledge forms, including arithmetic, geometry, language and reading. Cubes, sticks and slats could be laid out in rows for counting; triangular tablets for plane geometry; and, small sticks for number and alphabet sequences.
| Compositions of art, symmetry, dance and song led children to recognize and create forms of beauty with intrinsic value that led to an appreciation of aesthetics. A waterfall in Pennsylvania, snowflake in Michigan, honeycomb in California, fir tree in New Mexico, sumac in Illinois, and winged seed in Indiana are surely artistic expressions of nature's beauty learned by Wright through the manipulation of Froebel toys.
Copyright © 1999-2001 All rights reserved.
The John Christian Family Memorial Trust, Inc. and LEARNING ASSOCIATES
This page was created on May 18, 2001
Latest revision on June 9, 2001
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