Learning Is Child’s Play
This is probably more along the lines of something you would see discussed at Homeschooler Savvy, but it was so cool I could not resist sharing it myself.
One very artistic mom created a dollhouse for her daughter as an exact replica of Frida Kahlo’s Studio. The detail work is amazing! I have spent hours staring at her photos and trying to see all of the special touches that she did to create such an amazing dollhouse. It is a work of art in and of itself. And it’s a way for her to teach her daughter more about Frida’s life and art.
I made this miniature dollhouse for my daughter because I wanted her to learn about Frida Kahlo. This was such a fun project to make. It took me months to complete it but I am glad that I did it. Natalie loves it and once in a while we play with it on the kitchen table. She likes anything that is tiny just like her Mom. Next year I want to finish another dollhouse for her that I started last year but this one is bigger.
Suddenly I’m absolutely inspired, and wishing I had far more talent. Maybe I could glue some sticks together and call it Lincoln’s log cabin. Even if you can’t create beautiful dollhouses like Elsita does you can still use the idea as a great educational tool. You could try to create the homes of people in various time periods or create famous places. Depending on the ages of your children you could easily turn it into a family project, completing a little more each night and learning about the place and time you are building.
You can combine history, social studies and art all in one. Even a little math if you try to work everything to scale or just try to build the house yourself. eHow has an article on how to make dollhouses you can check out. For those a little more frugal or environmentally friendly FamilyFun has one for using household items in your dollhouse. You can create everything from a soap box toilet to a tea box fridge. Here is another simple one for using household trash recycled into dollhouse furniture. If you’re not sure where to begin you can download house plans for only $8 from Dollhouse Designs.
Have fun creating and learning!
doll house, dollhouse, crafts, creative, education, lesson plans, unit study
March 20th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I love the idea of using a dollhouse to enrich my kids’ learning activities. I just saw this yesterday - http://www.ohdeedoh.com/ohdeedoh/flickr-finds/flickr-finds-bookcase-dollhouse-041467. It’s a way to use a bookcase as the dollhouse structure instead of building one from scratch. It’s plain enough that you could “redecorate” based on different studies that you do in your homeschooling - i.e. period decor and costumes for history studies.