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Last updated 17/9/2025

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Introduction

Friedrich Froebel was born in 1782 and died in 1852. He was an educationalist from Thuringia, now part of Germany, who developed a theory of education through both teacher directed and self-directed play and founded what became known as the Kindergarten movement.

In his later years, Froebel extended his kindergarten system to include what he called occupations, which were aimed at the older kindergarten children, and differed from the earlier gifts, aimed at the younger, in that the materials used were transformed as they were played with.

One of these occupations was 'Falten' or 'paperfolding', and according to Eleonore Heerwart writing in her 'Course of paperfolding' in 1895, it was aimed at children of between 5 and 7 years of age. Like many of the other gifts and occupations, 'Falten' was divided into three categories, 'Lebensformen' (Forms of Life), 'Schonheitsformen' (Forms of Beauty) and 'Erkenntnisformen' (Forms of Knowledge)..

Some element of paperfolding was also an integral part of several other occupations as well, ie of Ausschneiden und Aufkleben (the cutting out and mounting of symmetrical patterns), Verschnuren (the interlacing of paper strips) and to a much lesser extent of Flechten (the weaving of paper strips into a slit paper frame).

After Froebel's death his followers in various countries both developed the scope of the existing original occupations and added others to the syllabus, some of which also include an element of paperfolding.

The remainder of this page is split into two sections. Part 1 is being used to collect information about paperfolding found in Froebel's own writings. Part 2 is being used to collect information about Froebel's own paperfolding from the writings of his followers, in the hope of being able to identify his own personal contribution to paperfolding history.

Froebel's paperfolding was based on the concept of 'groundforms' (which we would call bases or preliminary folds) from which children could easily develop their own Folds of Life or Folds of Beauty. Eleonore Heerwart tells us that Froebel himself called the Double Blintz Basic Form the 'Simple Groundform' and the Triple Blintz Basic Form the 'Double Groundform' but other writers use other names. In addition, many further groundforms were subsequently developed by his followers. Froebel himself did not apparently regard the singly blintzed square as a groundform.

The paperfolds attributed to Froebel by his followers are:

Froebel's method of cutting four squares from a rectangle

Folds of Truth - the series of very simple folds in the square which leads to the groundforms, and a simple octagon.

Folds of Beauty - A number of designs developed from either face of the Double Blintz Basic Form and from the doubly blintzed square.

Folds of Life (according to Gurney)

The Windmill, The Cigar Case, The Ship, The Boat with Sail, The Double Boat.

The Scent Bottle, The Muff, The Cross, The Inkwell, The Jacket, The Trousers.

Of these, The Cross is previously known as a napkin fold, and The Boat with Sail and The Double Boat are previously known from French sources.

As the evidence currently stands it is not impossible that Froebel invented the others, or indeed, other designs which do not feature in this list.

It is particularly tempting to suppose that since Froebel used the Double Blintz Basic Form as the basis of Folds of Beauty, he may have developed from it the Salt Cellar etc. However, while there is at present no specific evidence that the Salt Cellar pre-dated Froebel we should bear in mind that Heerrwart says:

All of the paperfolds within the 'Falten' occupation attributed to Froebel are developed from the square.

Despite the shading on some of the illustrations it seems that Froebel's 'Falten' designs were intended to be folded from paper that was the same colour on both surfaces, and that the use of paper with a different colour on each surface was a later development.

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Part 1: Information about paperfolding in Froebel's own writings

1826

In 1826 Froebel published 'Die Menschenerziehung', in English ''The Education of Man', outlining the principles and methods in use in his school at Keilhau. The 'Education of Man' does not contain an outline of the system of gifts and occupations that later came to characterise the Kindergarten movement. However, in his notes, interpolated into the text of the English translation, which was published by D Appleton and Company, New York in 1908, W N Hailmann states that 'In a weekly journal which Froebel began to publish in 1850, a System of Gifts and Occupations , similar to the one now used in kindergartens is described.' I have not been able to locate the journal entries that Hailmann refers to.

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1844

There is mention of a paper windmill on page 83 of 'The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's Mother Play', published by D Appleton and Company, New York in 1895, which is a rendering into English of a work by Froebel first published in German in 1844. The English text contains the sentence 'Hearing the sound, out runs a little boy with his paper windmill. It turns faster and faster as he increases his speed.' See The mottoes and commentaries of Friedrich Froebel's Mother Play

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1845/7

In his article 'Falling into Disuse: the rise and fall of Froebelian mathematical folding within British kindergartens' (See full article) Michael Freedman quotes two letters written by Froebel, in 1845 and 1847, which refer to paperfolding. Firstly, 'Around July 1845, Froebel writes to Leonhard Woepcke about the transformation of forms via paper folding: [a] further new and great, so entertaining, instructive and useful division of the occupations for the child is the transformation of the forms […] from flexible surfaces, from paper. The breaking and folding of different shapes and objects from one and the same square, or, what is the same: from several evenly sized squares.^' Secondly, Froebel also writes to Berthold Auerbach in 1847, including a “folding box” in his description of the occupation materials.'

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1874

The main source of information about Froebel's ideas on the use of paperfolding in the kindergarten, however, is to be found in Volume 2 of 'Gesammelte pädagogische Schriften' (Collected Educational Writings), an anthology of Froebel's writings edited by Wichard Lange and published by Enslin in Berlin in 1874. Pages 371–388 contain a section titled 'Anleitung zum Papierfalten. Ein Bruchstück. Eine entwickelnd-erziehende und unterhaltend-belehrende Kinderbeschäftigung für Kinder von 5 bis 7 Jahren und darüber, unter eingehender Mitwirkung von leitenden Erwachsenen' which Friedman translates as 'Instructions for Paper Folding: A Fragment. A Developing-Educating and Entertaining-Instructing Children’s Activity for Children from Five to Seven Years and Over, with the Extensive Participation of Adults'. Friedman dates this fragment to 1850.

An English translation of this section can be found as 'Employment of Children - Guide to Paper Folding - A Fragment' on pages 89 - 117 of 'Friedrich Froebel's Education by Development: The Second Part of the Pedagogics of the Kindergarten' translated by Josephine Jarvis and published by D Appleton and Company in New York in 1899, which can be found online here.

In this section Froebel first describes how to create a square from any irregular sheet of paper then how to fold and cut four squares from a single rectangular sheet of machine made paper. He then describes a number of simple folds that can be made in the square and the mathematical properties that they demonstrate.

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Part 2: Information from Froebel's followers

1877

In the second part of her book 'Kindergarten Practice', probably first published in London in 1877 by A N Myers and Co (which is a substantially abridged version, in two parts, of 'Die Praxis Des Kindergartens' by Auguste Koehler), Mary Gurney attributes several of the paperfolds shown in the illustrations to Froebel himself. (I have not found this information in Koehler's original book.)

These attributions are:

All the paperfolds shown in Plate XIV which include the singly blintzed and doubly blintzed groundforms (figs 14 and 19):

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The first 15 forms of life shown in Plate XV:

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The first 20 forms of beauty shown in Plate XVI:

These are all developed from the Doubly Blintzed Basic Form, some from one side and some from the other..

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1895

Eleenore Heerwart, writing in her 'Course in Paperfolding - One of Froebel's Occupations for Children', first published in 1895, says (from section 9 of her book) 'Froebel has described the first folds fully in his work ... never thinking how far these few hints would lead to in the course of years.' The first folds in question are the singly blintzed, doubly blintzed and triply blintzed groundforms.

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In discussing octagons, Heerwart says:

and

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Heerwart does not give any indication as to which Folds of Life were originated by Froebel, except for saying:

the 'dress articles' in question presumably being the Jacket, Trousers, Pair of Boots and the Pyramidal Hat. No illustration of the finished form of this 'miner' is given.

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With regard to Folds of Beauty, Heerwart states that 'Plate IX, contains Froebel's series of symmetrical forms (forms of beauty) from 17-24 the four triangles are folded on the same side where the four squares are.' It seems to me that there should be a full stop after (forms of beauty) and that 'From' should be capitalised to start a new sentence.

This plate contains three sets of designs. Those numbered 1 to 12 are developed from the side of the Doubly Blintxed Basic Form which has four square flaps. Those numbered 13 to 16 from the other side, and those numbered 17 to 24 from the doubly blintzed square (ie where the square is blintzed twice without turning it over to produce the Doubly Blintzed Basic Form).

The designs from the Doubly Blintzed Basic Form are similar to those found in Gurney (see above).

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Heerwart goes on to say that 'Froebel calls these also 'Getafel formen' that is patterns of inlaid wood ... and we learn from this name that he mean't to have them combined ...'

This no doubt explains why all the Folds of Beauty attributed to Froebel are folded from various versions of the doubly blintzed square, since they would then be all the same size and tessellate easily.

It is also worth noting that, according to Heerwart, Froebel recommended that children should first fold a quantity of groundforms and only then proceed to invent new designs from them:

and

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