Little House & The Farm, Part 3: Doll Making with Young Children

I've written before on Handcrafting for Little Hands and I knew I wanted to incorporate some handcrafting into our Little House & The Farm play theme. One of the most whimsical aspects of the Little House books is how the girls play with their dolls. S especially loves baby dolls and really enjoyed hearing the parts in Little House in the Big Woods about Mary's rag doll and Laura's wish for a rag doll that finally gets fulfilled in the winter holiday season. I decided we would surely try our hands at some ways of making our own dolls here. Sewing is a bit beyond S's capability at 4 years old, though he loves to practice stitching with a blunt needle on burlap or plastic canvas. He loved a laminated/velcro version of these Pioneeer paper dolls I prepared in our Ever-changing Book and both boys had fun using glue, ribbon, fabric scraps and buttons to create their own paper dolls.

1. Paper Dolls Collage
I gave each boy a small basket with yarn for hair and a couple of googly eyes. S decided to use buttons for eyes instead; what a creative idea! They shared the center materials between each other and I set out some colored pencils for added details as well. Once they were dry, they could use them in play or to hang on display!

Doll making need not be a very advanced activity, and in this second version, even young hands can help!



2. Yarn Dolls
I came across this great tutorial on making yarn dolls from Little House Living and decided to give it a whirl! We used some acrylic yarn we had on hand and you can use any yarn at all. You don't even need a whole skein--we made four dolls with plenty of yarn left to spare. Choose your favorite solid color or variegated yarn and begin by wrapping 20-30 times around the width of your fingers. I have a small hand, so I spread my fingers a bit. This will be the arms and hands of your doll.

Cut your yarn and tie a small length of yarn about half an inch in on either side. These will be the doll's hands. Cut the loops to create the fingers.

For the body, wrap yarn around a book or piece of cardboard 20-30 times. Not so ironically, the book closest to me was Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods! For the girl doll, I wrapped around the width of the book. For the boy doll, I wrapped around the length of the book.

Cut your yarn and tie off a piece of yarn about a half an inch from the top. This will be the top of the head and hair. You can leave it in loops like a bun or cut the loops for spiky hair! Tie another piece of yarn about an inch down to create the head. Cut through the loops on the other end of the body. Next, you'll separate the yarn into two sections. Slip your arms up below the head and pull the yarn of the body over top. Tie a piece of yarn below that to secure the arms in place. 

For a "boy" doll, you can separate the remaining strands of yarn into two sections and braid each section into legs or simply tie each section about an inch from the bottom. I opted to braid the legs.

For the "girl" doll, simply trim any uneven ends to create her skirt and you're done!

S and Y love these little dolls so much. S especially liked helping to wind the yarn around the book and Y carried his doll with him all the way to the library story time and kept showing it off the librarian! 

The final doll in our post is more of an adult project (in case you were looking for one) or a great first sewing project for an older child! I adapted the tutorial for Pioneer Handkerchief Dolls at Homemaker's Journal and used some of the Paw Patrol fabric and ribbons the boys bought at our General Store to surprise them each with their own Little House with a Modern Twist rag doll!

I have to admit, this took me back to my own days at day camp taking a summer sewing class and making dozens of different types of dolls. There is something so special about handmade toys and even at just 4 and 1, S and Y already seem to appreciate that. 

No doll is complete without a blanket to help put her to sleep! Quilting was surely a popular and necessary handcraft in the days of the pioneers, but also one that is yet a bit beyond my little guys. Using tacky glue and fabric squares and scraps on a sheet of felt was the perfect way to introduce the concept to them and a way they could each make a warm and cozy quilt for their new rag dolls. I also set out some buttons, which both boys seem to love! Once the glue was good and dry, they were ready to be used with our dolls or hung on display. 

While modern day conveniences (and Paw Patrol) are lovely aspects of the age we live in, it is fun and fascinating to dabble in the ways of the past and to play and imagine about how Laura and her siblings must have lived. Handcrafts need not become lost arts and indeed, there is a great deal of joy and meaning that comes from creating something with love and intention. We will be back with a colorful spin on hand dyeing fabric in our next post. Until then...

Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 2: The General Store

As I was gathering materials and ideas for our current play theme, Little House & The Farm, I came across a lot of wonderful resources and ideas on other blogs, Little House websites and homeschool websites. One of my favorites is this free printable Little House in the Big Woods & Pioneer Unit available at Every Star is Different (an especially useful site for those interested in Montessori style education). I tend to add my own flavor to printable materials, and I decided to adapt many of these into our Ever-changing Book. S especially took to "The General Store" activity. I laminated the cards provided in the free printable pack and added in a background page with some images I found of Colonial style General Stores. I added a small pouch of play coins (you could use real coins) and he could "go shopping" by choosing what he wanted to buy and matching the coins. Older children could add up the sum while younger ones would do best to match the coins to the picture. Our play money is true to size, which makes that easier. It also sparked a conversation of similarities and differences between coins and what each coin is called. S had a hard time telling apart the nickles and quarters at first until I showed him that nickels have a smooth edge and quarters have a bumpy one. In addition to matching and observing the spacial awareness to do so, he also worked on one-to-one correspondence and counting as he figured out how many of each coin he needed. When he filled the card, he got to keep it and play again!

Well, this was enough fun that he requested to play the game as is a few times this week. But I wanted to expand the activity into a "real" General Store dramatic play scene so both boys could go shopping Pioneer style! I tried to keep mostly true to the time period with some modern flair thrown in (I'm pretty sure Paw Patrol was not a common calico print of the time). I set up shop on our long dining room table while the boys napped [well, one of them at least] and then it was shopping day!

Our General Store stocked pots and pans, kitchen knives, handsaws and hammers, nails, boots, dried beans, ribbon (that needed to be measured and cut--gotta throw in some math and fine motor practice, right?), fabric, buttons, sugar and even candy! Each of the boys was given a pouch of large play coins (to be a bit more accommodating to Y who still explores with his mouth) and each item would cost one coin (also to be a bit more accommodating to mixed ages). Older shoppers could be encouraged to do a bit of adding while they shop with a more creative pricing system. Even as we set it up, they might have to pay a coin for one pot or 1 foot of yarn (and more if they wanted 2 feet), one scoop of beans or candy and so on.

I stocked shopping bags and drawstring pouches for our shoppers and a sales registry I bought a while ago at Dollar Tree for dramatic play. As they shopped, I wrote down their purchases and added their total. S helped count the appropriate number of coins. He would have spent his whole pouch of money on candy if there weren't a two scoop limit, although he was nearly as excited for the 4 nails to add to his wood shop!

S thoroughly examined the Paw Patrol fabric he wanted to buy before making his final decision. We'd be using this again in projects later in the week...

Y was quite thrilled to be bringing home a new hammer and handsaw! I wonder what he'll build?

It was a great day at the General Store!

This was such a fun way to spend our afternoon engaged in dramatic play. But play is not the only thing that happened--we also learned a bit about history and practiced math skills like measuring, counting, adding and early reading and writing in our print-rich environment. Our play scene was also a great opportunity to practice the social skills of shopping like waiting your turn, navigating a crowded store, and communicating politely with sales associates and other shoppers. The boys demolished the candy, S saved his pouch of sugar to add to our Shabbos dessert recipe later this week and the fabric and ribbons they bought were to make a second surprise appearance in the morning. Join us tomorrow to see what became of them and until then...

Happy Playing!

Little House & The Farm, Part 1: Sheep's Wool Sensory Bin

The Sprout Scouts Playcamp is taking a trip back in time to when the American Pioneers lived and farmed! We planned to spend a couple of weeks in a farm theme here, one we have definitely explored before and love. We could revisit this theme again and again and never run out of ways to explore the fun and learning that a farm has to offer. But when S sat down beside me while I was re-reading Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (hey, some of us read trashy romance novels and some of us read young adult historical fiction...) over Shabbos a couple of weeks ago and asked me to read aloud, I gladly obliged. And I also got a BIG idea to give our farm theme a little house flair! How fun would it be to travel back in time to the days of the Pioneers and learn about life on the farm back then.

Our theme started off with a Friday field trip to a local farm museum that welcomes guests for guided tours or just to explore independently throughout the year. We got to pet and feed sheep, meet the cows and pigs and donkeys and even try out some old fashioned tools to cut and chop wood! We could not have asked for a more perfect way to begin our activities this week. I spent many evenings last week and much of Sunday plotting, planning and preparing for a lot of ways to play and learn this week, and I think I might be more excited than even the boys! Join us on our trek back in time as we...

• explore farm animals through songs, sensory play, art and dramatic play
• open our own General Store
• try our hands at doll making in a variety of ways
• engage in some creative Little House Building
• hand dye our own fabric
• test out some old fashioned, tasty treats in the kitchen
• get moving with some old time tunes
• play and learn about work on the farm during the Pioneers' days

...and more!

Feel free to try some or all of the activities at home. We likely won't get to everything I have planned (and I can't stop myself!) right now and that's OK. These activities are ones we will surely enjoy and probably revisit over the course of the year.

Since both boys especially loved seeing, petting and even feeding the sheep on the farm last week, I thought we'd start off the week with an opportunity to explore one of these creatures greatest gifts, wool!

My boys have seen me knitting and needle felting and even helped me pick out yarn at the store, but neither one has ever seen how that yarn came to arrive on the store shelf. As a needle-felter, I have a stash of sheep's wool roving on hand and thought this would be the perfect addition to our sensory table! I headed over to the Dollar Tree to pick up a couple of dog brushes and hair brushes for the boys to use to try carding wool. I can actually remember visiting a museum as a little girl that had a similar setup in an exhibit and loving the experience! I set out a basket of un-dyed wool roving, a few different sets of brushes, a ball of white yarn to see "the finished product" and Google image searched for some photos to show to steps involved from sheep to wool to yarn. With a couple of our favorite plush sheep to keep company while we worked, the boys (even Tatty) were ready to try their hands at carding wool! S was a little confused at first that our wool wasn't "string" yet after he was busy brushing for a while. He even went back to the metal ring of photo cards to see what steps he might be missing! Then I explained, with the help of our photos, that we were only practicing the process of smoothing the wool by carding and that we'd need special tools like a spinning wheel or drop spindle to actually make yarn. He may have been a little disappointed that we didn't have the tools to finish the job, but perhaps we will find a video or local demonstration for him to see.

Both S and Y had fun this morning making some woolly sheep decorations to hang in our window. I prepped this simple activity by cutting the shape of a sheep's body out of clear contact paper and adding black construction paper legs and head with some clear tape on the back. I removed the backing from the contact paper, sticky side up, and the boys were able to stick on cotton balls for wool. Y piled them high and deep and S enjoyed stretching a few across the sticky contact paper.

It's another rainy start to the week here, but this play theme is one that is just as much fun to explore indoors as outside. We'll be back soon with some more old fashioned fun on the farm. Until then...

Happy Playing!