Friedrich Froebel was born in a German village in 1782. As an educator he believed that stimulating voluntary activity in the young was the necessary form of pre-school education. Thus he based his kindergarten ("garden of children") on this premise and provided the children with many stimulating activities and "gifts" to play with.

The picture here presents one of Froebel's gifts that is especially relevant to our discussion of polyhedra. He suspended three common solids in such a way that the children could examine their different properties by rotating (spinning), "slicing", feeling, etc. The sphere, because it is so symmetric, had only one loop hole by which it was to be suspended. But the cube and cylinder had multiple loops so the children could suspend the solids in different ways and examine how complex the seemingly simple shapes truly were.

A significant idea behind this historical example is how important it is for developing minds to examine things around them in a freely structured manner. It is not difficult to imagine a three or four year-old playing with the wooden solids and learning from their play. With the technology developing today, is it possible to create a computer "gift" that lends itself to being played with by a child in a similar manner that Froebel's gift did? Does the "playing" have to come at an older age (junior high, high school, college), or can playing be done by younger children as well?