American Girl Club

Sophia and I are so excited!  We have found 6 other little girls (or should I say young ladies?) that LOVE American Girl Dolls are are excited to form an American Girl Doll Club to study American history over the next 2 years.  We can't wait for the first meeting!

Here is what the club is supposed to look like:

We plan to study the AG dolls and their period in history in chronological order:

Kaya  1764
Felicity  1774
Josephina  1824
Kristin 1854
Addy 1864
Samantha 1904
Rebecca 1914
Kit 1934
Molly   1944
Julie  1974

We encourage each girl to read at least the first book in each series prior to the first meeting for each doll, but obviously aren’t going to force them to read the books if they don’t want to.  Each girl is asked to bring any AG doll (or other 18 inch doll) with them each meeting.

Basic outline for each meeting:

Meeting #1:  Craft for the AG doll, history and game

Meeting #2: Food from the time period, history and game

Meeting #3:  Field trip

Meeting #4:  Craft from the time period and scrapbook pages.  If time permits we will go back and “replay” favorite games

The thought on the scrapbook pages are that the girls can use pictures for the fieldtrip or any other items they like to decorate the pages.  We thought that it would be fun for them to have AG catalogs to cut up, so if you have any, tuck them away to bring with you!

The first two months we will focus on Kaya (host family F):

Meeting #1 :  Outfit and moccasins for the dolls

Meeting #2 :Cooking (we were thinking bison)

Meeting #3 :  Sunwatch Indian Village http://www.sunwatch.org/  this should be free if you are a member of the Cincinnati Museum Center

Meeting #4 : dreamcatchers and scrapbooking

Followed by Felicity (host family R):

Meeting #1 : hat for dolls and paper marbling

Meeting #2 :  spiced nuts and lemon tarts

Meeting #3 : 1776 re-enactors visit

Meeting #4 : hoops and sticks craft, journals with marbled paper (from meeting #1) and scrapbooking

We have left December open for the girls to have some kind of Christmas gathering!

After the new year will be study Josephina (host family M)

Meeting #1 : rebozos for dolls

Meeting #2 : cookies and hot chocolate

Meeting #3:  possible tour of the cathedral downtown as Catholicism had a huge influence in Josephina’s life.  The cathedral was build in the 1840s, so not too far out of Josephina’s timeline http://www.stpeterinchainscathedral.org/

Meeting #4: journal or other craft and scrapbooking

We will study Kristin in March and April and Addy in May and June, take July off and then start back in August with the remaining 5 girls following the same 2 month schedule!

We also decided that we will have “dues” for the group so that we can use the money to purchase craft supplies.  As of right now the host family for each month will provide the food, we might figure food costs in too in the future, especially if some families prefer not to host a “doll”, we will just figure it out as we go.  Dues for the first 4 months will be $8.  We ask that everyone pay this at the first meeting. Families will be encouraged to host a “doll” but is not a requirement as we know some families are better at organizing this or have fewer things on their plates and some of us are just control freaks!

We are open to any suggestions!  We want the girls to enjoy themselves, make new friends and learn a little history at the same time!

Here are a few links : 

The American Girls and American History   http://eclectichomeschool.org/articles/article.asp?articleid=61
 http://www.krazykuehnerdays.com/2011/06/american-girl-club-first-meeting-for.html 

Also, for the boys (younger or older brothers), I will bring legos to play with (or if one of the moms would like to host a lego club for the boys at the same time, feel free to jump in!) or there is an area for playing on during the meetings.  I figure that they will join us for fieldtrips if they are interested or that you can make other arrangements for them those days!