Emotions

Emo Santa doll, with changeable facial expression

Danya Banya December 11, 2013 3

Make an Emo Santa toy, with changeable facial expression, to encourage kids to consider emotions (and develop emotional intelligence and empathy) through imaginative play.

Another outfit for our Emo Dolls! With Christmas approaching, we made an Emo Santa doll!

I made this outfit from (you guessed it) a toilet paper roll! But you could also use any similar diameter cardboard tube (such as a paper towel tube for instance).

How to make a toilet paper roll Santa

The first step is to cut a circle for the ‘face’. I made the hat from red felt, a pom pom and a hot glue gun – which is also how I attached it to the top of the roll. Then I painted the edge of the hat, the hair and the beard using white acrylic paint, and the Santa suit using red, black and yellow acrylic paint.

You can then pair this outfit with any of the Emo Doll inner rolls that have the expressions on them. (For those that havn’t seen my earlier post, here is a quick photo of them in their birthday suits to give you the idea… Click over to see how to make them.)

My daughter JJ (3.5 years old) was so keen to play with her new Santa doll, that she didn’t give me much time to take many photos! Here she is ‘borrowing’ him for ‘just a little bit Mummy’. Always a good sign…

Luckily I managed to ‘borrow’ him back for a few snaps while she was at preschool. 🙂

The beauty of this type of doll is that you can change the expression on Santa’s face. This is a good way to encourage children to explore emotions and empathy in a play setting. What would Santa’s face look like when he thought Christmas was cancelled? What would it look like when he realised Rudolph could guide the sleigh after all?

Oh, and cause I love bad jokes, I just couldn’t resist this one. Enjoy!

You can find all our Christmas activities for kids here, including:

a Frosty the Snowman Emo Doll outfit
Holly the Christmas Fairy (Rainbow Magic book) inspired Emo Doll outfits
How to make a toilet paper roll Christmas tree advent calendar
How to make your own Play Snow
Homemade gingerbread play dough

You might also like to follow along with our Merry Christmas and Toilet Paper Rolls Pinterest boards.

And, of course, you can always subscribe to our newsletter, to receive all our latest activities via email. We’d love to have you join us!

xx Danya

Categories Christmas, For the DIY Mum, Imaginative Play, Preschoolers, Toilet Paper Rolls Tags Emotions, Recycled or Upcycled

Frosty the Snowman Emo Doll

Danya Banya December 8, 2013 0

How to make a Frosty the Snowman toilet paper roll doll, with changeable facial expressions to encourage emotional imaginative play. Fun winter-themed or Christmas activity for kids!

Remember the ‘naked’ Emo Dolls I made last week? Well, now they have a brand new set of ‘clothes’. (I don’t know if a snowman suit technically counts as clothes, but you know what I mean…)

And so, I’m pleased to introduce you to…. Frosty the Emo Doll!

I had so much fun making him! Want to see how?

How to make a Frosty the Snowman toilet paper roll doll

You need:

a toilet paper roll (or other cardboard tube of similar diameter)
white acrylic paint
black and red felt
hot glue gun
scissors
inner facial expressions tube (see our tutorial here)

I cut a circle out of the toilet paper roll where the face would be, and then painted the rest of the roll white. I then made the little hat and scarf with scrap felt and a hot glue gun.

The hat doesn’t have to look perfect – snowmen hats are supposed to look a bit dishevelled – which is lucky as my 14 month old daughter Bee had lots of fun trying to pull the hat off, adding to the dishevelled look!

Bee is starting to interact with dolls. She says ‘Mah’ and gives them a kiss. She can also ‘walk’ them along the ground.

We had some Play Snow left over from last week, so Frosty enjoyed a little snow play in our backyard.

To give Frosty a face, I used one of the inner rolls with the facial expressions that I’d made earlier. The idea is that kids can change Frosty’s facial expression, and in this way, they can learn about emotions and empathy while they are playing.

Here is my eldest daughter JJ (3.5 years old) choosing which facial expression Frosty would ‘wear’ that day.

She chose an angry face, and started to role play a scene similar to one that had occurred at a supermarket play area the day before.

JJ said “He’s a mean snowman Mummy. He’s still learning how to be nice.”

“Oh, is he not playing nicely? What are you going to say?” I asked.

“I don’t like that. Let’s play a fun game instead.”

Inwardly I was grinning. Teaching JJ that most kids are not innately ‘mean’, that they sometimes need help to learn how to play nicely, that she can stand up for herself by saying “I don’t like that” and that she can encourage a change in play is something we’ve been working on. The above conversation mimicked almost exactly a situation that JJ faced the day prior, where there was a young boy who was playing slightly rough. JJ stood up for herself, and managed to change the play dynamic, and the two went on to play happily together for ages.

Later JJ changed Frosty’s facial expression to this dollar sign one. (I don’t think she knows what the dollar signs means, she just saw this as a fun face.)

And then JJ sprinkled the play snow, to make a little flurry! She made it snow on Bee too, who though it was a marvellous idea. Umm, Mummy’s doesn’t agree. Careful not to get it in anyone’s eyes!

In all, lots of snowy role play fun for a sunny Aussie summer’s day…

And to finish up, I couldn’t resist slipping in this little Dad Mum joke. It’s one of my favourites at the moment. 🙂

We have lots of fun Christmas ideas over on our Christmas Activities for Kids page, including:

How to make an ’emo’ Santa toilet paper roll doll
How to make a set of Holly the Christmas Fairy ’emo’ toilet paper roll dolls, to go with the Rainbow Magic book
How to make a toilet paper roll Christmas bauble stamper
How to make a toilet paper roll Christmas tree advent calendar
How to make Play Snow

You might also like our Merry Christmas, Let It Snow, and Toilet Paper Rolls Pinterest boards.

And, of course, you can always subscribe to our newsletter, to receive all our latest posts in your Inbox. We’d love to have you join us!

xx Danya

Categories Christmas, For the DIY Mum, Imaginative Play, Preschoolers, Toilet Paper Rolls Tags Emotions, Recycled or Upcycled

Emo Dolls {DIY dolls that encourage empathy through play}

Danya Banya December 2, 2013 9

Emo Dolls! These fun DIY dolls made from recycled cardboard roles have changeable facial expressions to help kids consider emotions and develop empathy skills while they play.

I’ve been wanting to make these dolls for a few years now. I’ve seen a few versions of them on Playschool over the past few years. When I was researching for this post, I also discovered some cute ones made by The Craft Train and A Little Learning for Two.

For my version, you need cardboard tubes in two different diameters, so that they fit inside each other. I used toilet paper rolls for the outer tubes and a cling wrap roll for the inner tubes. (Some school have an aversion to toilet paper rolls – you could also use paper towel rolls or other cardboard tubes and just cut to the right length).

Using small sharp scissors, I cut small circles out of each of the TP rolls, making sure that the circles were the same size and distance from the edge of the roll.

Then using a serrated knife, I cut the cling wrap roll into three large pieces, each just a few millimetres shorter than the length of the toilet roll tube. And I couldn’t waste the offcut – that became the baby or fairy.

I practiced drawing facial expressions onto a piece of paper, before attempting to draw them on the cardboard tubes. When I was confident, I inserted the smaller diameter roll into the larger one and drew the expressions within the ‘face’ area, twisting the inner roll to provide a new blank face as I went. I tried to include a mix of emotions – happy, sad, surprised, angry, ecstatic, confused, suspicious. I found I could fit three to four different expressions on each end of the inner rolls.

Here are my attempts. Older kids might be able to draw these different expressions for themselves.

I’ve since made a few ‘outfits’ for these dolls, by decorating the outer toilet paper rolls. But before I did so, I thought it would be interesting to let my 3.5 year old daughter JJ play with them while they were still ‘blank’.

Here she is ‘meeting’ them for the first time.

And success! She started role playing with them right away. She loved being able to take the inner tube out and see all the different expression options, before choosing the appropriate expression to suit the emotion that she wanted her character to feel.

JJ’s exploring the differences between girls and boys at the moment, so in her initial play she choose a happy face when she wanted an emo doll to be a girl, and an angry or sad face when she wanted an emo doll to be a boy. Despite having lots of friends that are boys (and indeed her best friend is a boy), I’ve noticed that her role play is much more gender biased than her real life play. This is something that I’ll keep an eye on, but it was still interesting that these dolls provided her with the opportunity to explore these concepts in her own way.

Right now, I’m happy to let JJ direct the play. But these dolls could also be used to actively role play scenarios to address areas of concern.

And if you are interested in some ‘outfits’, so far we have made an Emo Santa, Frosty the Emo Doll, Holly the Emo Christmas Fairy (and friends), and a Little Bo Peep. Click over to see how we made them, and the play they inspired.