Last week our six-week co-op classes started for the spring session. I have two children signed up for my class, one great helper and her wee little who joined us. We had SUCH fun.
Our first class I wanted to assess their skills so I chose a doll that could be simple or hard depending on their abilities (6-8 year olds can be all over the map you know). We would make wooden spoon dolls.
Part of my class is to give the children a VERY brief history into wooden spoons and the dolls that came from them. We talked about how wooden spoons came into being, and then how wooden spoons were a symbol of marriage. A fellow would give his gal a wooden spoon and she’d hang it on the wall. Sometimes they would be shaped like a key, or have a wooden heart on the end or just be a good wooden spoon. Something she could take into her marriage with her a vital part of her life. We talked about how a spoon could be passed down from mom to daughter and so forth. The children thought that was amazing.
Then we talked about how wooden spoons were easy to make if you had wood on hand, and how parents like to make their children happy (just like their own moms and dads do) and they would often use whatever they had on hand, and sometimes that would be an older wooden spoon they didn’t use any more. They were very popular in colonial days, being made of scraps of material mom would have left over.
Then we set out to make wooden spoon dolls. I was really clear with the children that they got to make all the decisions about what their dolls would look like. I’d help them if they needed it but they needed to decide on colours and design. We had one boy in our class who DIDN”T want a dress on his doll so we learned to make pants, and then later a cape. We had one girl who choose to make a elegant evening gown and then a simpler evening dress. I made a gramma doll and the children HOOTED. 🙂
Anyways, this was an amazingly simple craft to do with the children and we had so much fun.
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