{DIY} Box Doll

I made this cute box doll to use as a teaching aid for my church nursery class this morning. 

The 7 children, aged 18 months to 3 years old, loved her! I named her Lucy and used her to teach a lesson about Jesus.

I told the children 3 simple stories about Jesus from the Bible. In the first story, Jesus shared some bread and fish with the 5,000 people who had come to listen to him.
After I had told the story, the children were able to feed Lucy little imaginary pieces of bread.

Then I told the children about Jesus blessing the children and hugging and loving them.
Then I walked around the room with Lucy and let each child give Lucy a hug.

Finally, I ended the lesson by telling the story about Jesus healing the blind man. I had each child cover his or her eyes and imagine that they couldn't see. We talked about how sad it would be to be blind or to be deaf or not be able to walk.

I showed the children Lucy's legs. They were wiggly and floppy so she couldn't walk very well. Then I let each child hold Lucy's hand and help her walk for a few minutes.
We talked about how we can share, and hug, and help just like Jesus did.

Each child, even the littlest ones, were so engaged with this lesson. I was amazed at how they waited for their turn to interact with Lucy and even stayed on their little chairs the whole time.

I can see using Lucy again in lots of teaching situations. She would work great when we were talking about eating healthy foods. The children could feed Lucy lots of pretend foods that I could provide.

Lucy could also be used to eat foods of certain colors or foods that start with certain letters if you wanted to use her for preschool aged children.

She was so simple and easy to make and so much fun to use!

All I did was glue some white cardstock to a box.

Then I cut out Lucy's head by using a bowl as my pattern. I used tan cardstock for her head and arm and legs. Once I had drawn Lucy's mouth, I cut a slightly wider opening on the box and then glued Lucy's head in place. We added yarn hair and a cute patterned dress with scrapbook paper. Katie coordinated her cute bows and sash and buttons.

I think she took me about an hour to make and didn't cost anything as I used supplies that I already had at home!

What a fun Nursery day! Thanks Lucy!