Grimm's Four Temperaments Building Set: Waldorf-Inspired Play and Learning Ideas

Josie @onwillowsbend for Oskar's Wooden Ark | August 13, 2021

What are the Four Temperaments? 

The Four Human Temperaments are: Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholic and Phlegmatic. Originally called “the humors”, these four temperaments have been used since the Middle Ages to evaluate the human character. Rudolf Steiner revived this philosophy, referring to the humors as “the temperaments” and offered insights into how an understanding of the temperaments might be beneficial for educators and students.

The Four Temperaments

What do the Four Temperaments tell us about our character?

Each person is a unique blend of all four temperaments, however many of us will find our personality and character reflects one of the temperaments more strongly.
The temperaments do not define us, instead they can offer fascinating insights into our unique character, or the characters of our children.

In Waldorf education the four temperaments are used to evaluate the personalities of children in the class, as well as to inform inner work practices for teachers. Understanding the four temperaments and how each child’s character traits influence the way they learn, communicate and interact with others may allow a teacher to forge a more meaningful connection with their student.

As parents, understanding the temperaments can help us to develop an insightful approach to our child’s behaviour and allow us to identify potential triggers, respond to challenging behaviours and foster the deep connection we have with our child by understanding their unique needs. 

Grimm's Four Temperaments - What do they represent? 

The new Four Temperaments puzzle and building set from Grimm’s Wooden Toys is a beautiful visual representation of the four temperaments in colour and form. The set contains four unique and distinctive puzzles, each one representative of each of the four temperaments.

The Phlegmatic temperament is steady, peaceful and content, its colour is green. Soft curves and flowing lines correspond to the element of Water.

The Melancholic temperament is compassionate and pensive, its colour is blue. Spiralling inwards the forms are strong and enduring, corresponding to the element of Earth.

The Choleric temperament is fiery and determined, its colour is red. The angular shapes, rich colours and unpredictable forms correspond to the element of Fire.

The Sanguine temperament is optimistic and bright, its colour is yellow. Sunny and free, the playful pattern and flowing shapes correspond to the element of Air.

Grimm's Four Temperaments - What do they represent?

Open-ended play with Grimm's Four Temperaments

Foster Creative Thinking & Problem Solving with Open-ended Toys

Grimm’s Wooden toys have a history of creating beautiful, natural toys that promote open-ended play and learning for children of all ages. Inspired by the Waldorf philosophy, Grimm’s toys are simple, colourful and beautiful.

The new Four Temperaments building set draws the eye and sparks curiosity, it is an invitation for children to explore, experiment and create. Providing our children with simple, natural play materials fosters creative thinking and problem solving. 

Nurture Creative Play and Imagination 

Waldorf toys nourish a child’s senses, touch, sight, and sometimes even smell. Simple, open ended toys nurture the child’s imagination, natural materials hold life and warmth, beautiful colours and interesting forms foster a child’s aesthetic awareness.

The Four Temperaments set stimulates the imagination and promotes creative play. The wooden shapes mirror forms and patterns found in nature and the bright colours draw the eye.

Depending on their character or mood the child may be drawn to a particular puzzle or form, they may choose to use all of the blocks or just a few, they may choose to build vertical towers or create horizontal pictures. Children’s play, when closely observed, offers us a fascinating insight into the inner life of that child. 

Creative Play with the Grimm's Four Temperaments 

Discovering Grimm's Four Temperaments

Observing Kids and their Temperament

As a home educating mum to five wonderful girls ranging in age from 2-12, I am fascinated by the way children play and learn. Over the past week my girls and I have played with, explored and experimented with The Four Temperaments building set.

It was interesting to see that each of my children was drawn to a particular puzzle in the set, and that with each of them the puzzle they chose very much aligned with my observations about their particular temperament.

The Four Temperaments set can be explored in many different ways. Unlike some of the other Grimm’s building sets, The Four Temperaments set comes with a coloured paper template that fits in the base of the wooden tray, meaning children can use this template to more easily complete the puzzles.

However, this set is so much more than just a puzzle, we found many different ways to use and enjoy the beautiful, colourful blocks and found ourselves inspired to be creative in the way we used this set. Below are some fun ideas for exploring The Four Temperaments set with your children.

Inspiring Play and Learning Ideas with the Grimm's Four Temperaments Building Set

1. Exploring the Elements 

As I touched on above, each of the four temperaments corresponds to one of the four elements; Earth, Water, Fire and Air. Becoming familiar with the properties, mood and and feeling associated with the four elements can be a gentle introduction to scientific concepts for young children. I talked with my girls about how the elements and temperaments correspond and we tried creating an image of each of the elements from their corresponding puzzles. Using the phlegmatic puzzle the girls made a river, with the choleric puzzle they made a fire, with the sanguine puzzle they made a butterfly, and with the melancholic puzzle they created a tree. 

Creating a river with the phlegmatic puzzle

Playing with light and shadow

2. Playing with Light and Shadow

One of the most beautiful things about this particular building set is the many differently shaped pieces; sharp angles, gentle curves, flowing lines and interesting indentations challenge children to truly consider how the shapes may fit together, or how they can balance and build with the various pieces in the set. One of the things we immediately noticed when we began to build towers with these blocks were the negative spaces created by the varied shapes. The shapes between the blocks were just as varied and interesting as the shapes of the blocks themselves. We set up a lamp in front of a blank wall so we could see the shadows created by our towers, and we used a large piece of paper to make shadow drawings of our block towers.

3. Creating Creatures

The many different shapes, forms and colours in The Four Temperaments set are evocative of the beautiful shapes, patterns and forms seen in the natural world. We made horizontal pictures of flowers, trees and a river with the blocks and then the girls realised they could stack the blocks vertically to create all sorts of creatures. They made a rooster, rabbit, crocodile, dog and a beautiful butterfly. The four temperaments are often associated with certain animals, sanguines are often likened to the rabbit, the butterfly or the otter, cholerics are likened to lions and cats, phlegmatics are likened to the dog, the ox or the sheep and melancholics are often likened to the owl, the pig or the beaver. Perhaps you could try making some of these creatures from their corresponding puzzle pieces.

Creating creatures

Creating paintings to represent the four temperaments

4. Inspired by Colour

As demonstrated so beautifully by The Four Temperaments building set, each temperament has its own colour and mood. After talking about this with my girls, and discussing the mood evoked by each puzzle we were inspired to create wet on wet paintings to represent the four temperaments using our Stockmar paints. The colours in our paintings blended beautifully from one to the next, a wonderful visual for the way each of the four temperaments can work in harmony.