Drawing Tuesday - Wellcome Collection

The "Play" exhibition started with a display of all 24 of Froebel's Gifts, structured play/learning materials invented by a 19th century early-childhood educator -

Froebel's original set (1837) included six activities

... more complex activities were added later

Beloved toys were in glass cases, including a Stieff bear that had had exploratory surgery to find out why his growler wasn't working, sewn up with red thread. His owner went on to become a vet -

A trio of toys, by Jo

Surgical bear

Pumpie, recently made famous by being restored at the V&A
(programme available till May on the BBC iplayer)

A Lego dog, before the firm made bricks

Joyce focussed on the simple Froebel blocks -

In other parts of the building, Sue tackled the glass model of the Giardia organism -

 Judith spent time with the glass implements in the Henry Wellcome display -

Most of my time was spent looking at the exhibition, which included a charming child's drawing of figures with their shadows, presented as an animation in which the shadows gradually appeared, from the figure down, rather like this -

It drew my interest to the shadows of people watching a video

drawing in the dark

I tend to shy away from human figures so this quick sketch - and the won't-hold-still children in a play area - were a bit of a breakthrough, small as it seems.

Extracurricular activities included life drawing along with "that programme on the telly" (available till early March) -

 ... and Joyce made a Beavers shirt for her grandson's beaver toy -