There’s one guarantee in life and that is if kids can take the clothes off a doll, they will. I don’t want to get into the kind of trouble the kids in our program get into with that. Instead, I try to make sure all the dolls have permanent clothes. If I find a naked doll (yes, this is a thing), I put it away until I can properly outfit her with locked-on, can’t-take-off, clothes. Even THEN, if I don’t make it fool proof, they find a way.
I was rummaging through an old drawer when I stumbled upon several naked dolls that I must have confiscated over the years. I’m sure I had every intention of making them clothes, or at least, permanently sewing on their original outfits. These dolls are so cute and the kids absolutely love playing with them, so I pulled them out and took them home.
I didn’t have time to make them outfits at work before school let out but I was scheduled to work a week of our summer program. The majority of the kids in the summer program are not kids I know. They are from our sister school. I figured making crochet outfits for dolls would make a nice ice-breaker with them while introducing them to crochet. It worked beautifully. I pulled out the doll and started making her an outfit and I had a circle of kids crocheting with me in no time.
I was only there one week but I was pleasantly surprised that quite a few of them (three Kinders!) picked up chaining fairly quickly and I had two older girls trying out single crochet. It was a lot of fun. They wanted to help dress the doll so they made her a necklace and a bracelet.

Now she’s ready to go out and play!