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Little People, Big Feelings

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Create a family of ice cream stick dolls with your child.

At OMO, we believe that every stain represents an important experience - mud stains are the stamp of adventure, grass stains are the sign of exploration and fruit stains are the aftermath of discovery. Encourage your kids to get messy with our fun activities for happy, healthy, confident kids. We'll be there to sort out the dirty clothes afterwards.

Little People, Big Feelings

Create a family of ice cream stick dolls with your child.

What you’ll need:

What you will need

What to do:

Show your child how to draw a face at the top of an ice cream stick and then glue on bits of wool to make hair and fabric for clothes. Your child could also draw on clothes and hair. Explain that you are going to make an ice cream stick family. Ask your child to decide who is in the family. They could make the family match your own family and try to make the dolls look like each family member, or they could make up a different family. While you are making the dolls with your child, talk about how families look different and not all families are the same as your family.  Explain that some families have a Father and a Mother, others may have two Fathers or only one parent or a Grandma and no ‘parent’ figures. Talk to your child about the different people in your extended family, and about the families of friends that they have visited. 

When the family of dolls is complete, your child can play with them and keep them for other games. You can also use these dolls to help your child act out and talk about relationships between family members and express their emotions.

Alternative Materials:

Alternative materials

Change it up:

Make it easy: Help your child to draw simple faces on the ice cream sticks and use coloured tape to make clothing.

Make it a challenge: Ask your child to make a set of dolls of your own family and try to make them look as much like each family member as possible.

Play with friends: A group of friends could each make their own family of dolls or they could each make a doll of one of the other friends in the group, trying to make it look clearly like their friend. Everyone can guess who the doll is of once it is complete. Talk about how friends play a different role to family but are important to you and can become like family.

Indoor play: This is a perfect activity for doing inside on a rainy day. Lay down a sheet or newspaper to protect the work area from dripping glue or paint. 

Developmental areas:

  • Fine motor skills

  • Memory

Values instilled

Creativity; relationships; communication; empathy.