Pat and Joanne tried in vain; realizing they'd need to use all four hands, be super steady , and super exact as each part depended on the others to be in place all at the same time.
After emailing Wally (me), to ask if this practice exercise was even possible, I provided an image that demonstrated that the Life Form, as postulated by Froebel, could indeed be constructed, as illustrated in the Kindergarten Guide.
While Joanne considered this to be a structural wonder, I provided some tips to help keep the cubes in place. Before placing the blocks together, moisten each block immediately before you attempt to put it in place with water, on a mositened tissue, onto the surfaces that will touch.
This procedure will tend to raise the wood grain thus increasing friction to keep the blocks from slipping.In addition, build the right and left arches first by assembling the parts individually, the upright columns with connecting arches, by placing prefabricated arches onto the columns each as a sub-set composed of four quarter cubes, two full cubes and one half cube.
Joanne reported, according to Wally "to finally build up the top of the life form, moistening the contact surfaces of the three full cubes in the middle, held in place by pressure (weight like that of a key-stone) and continue to add the other half and quarter cubes upward in a symmetrical manner."