Baby Christian
October 3rd, 2007, 08:53 AM
American Girls are a wonderful way to teach US History, imvho!
My 9 yo dd relates everything in US History to one of her AG "friends" including family members and real friends past and present! Grampa B was in WWII with Molly's dad, mom's Gramma was the same age as Samantha, etc. Dd also went through the church directory and found eleven people who were the same age as Kit! :lol2
Let's see, here are some fun Samantha era people/things we learned about...the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt and his family, automobiles, cotton candy (fairy floss), child labor, nickelodeons, showers, vacuum cleaners, progress in America...I know there was more but that might help you get started. I just look at the back of each book in the "Looking Back" section to get ideas for the era.
Dd also likes being in costume while I read-a-loud the book. She will go through the story the day ahead of time and pick out outfits that look similar to what the AG is wearing, so when it is read-a-loud time she can pretend to be that girl.
I also involve dd in choosing books and DVD's from the library for the era. We really like the Nest Entertainment, Animated Hero classics DVD's.
We also cook something from an era recipe which she is totally in charge of. She writes the recipe out, checks for ingredients, makes a shopping list of things we need for it, buys what we need, plans the meal, cooks and cleans up. (okay, so I supervise, she is after all only 9:shocked but you get the idea)
Let us know what you do!
YSIC, Baby C.
My 9 yo dd relates everything in US History to one of her AG "friends" including family members and real friends past and present! Grampa B was in WWII with Molly's dad, mom's Gramma was the same age as Samantha, etc. Dd also went through the church directory and found eleven people who were the same age as Kit! :lol2
Let's see, here are some fun Samantha era people/things we learned about...the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, Theodore Roosevelt and his family, automobiles, cotton candy (fairy floss), child labor, nickelodeons, showers, vacuum cleaners, progress in America...I know there was more but that might help you get started. I just look at the back of each book in the "Looking Back" section to get ideas for the era.
Dd also likes being in costume while I read-a-loud the book. She will go through the story the day ahead of time and pick out outfits that look similar to what the AG is wearing, so when it is read-a-loud time she can pretend to be that girl.
I also involve dd in choosing books and DVD's from the library for the era. We really like the Nest Entertainment, Animated Hero classics DVD's.
We also cook something from an era recipe which she is totally in charge of. She writes the recipe out, checks for ingredients, makes a shopping list of things we need for it, buys what we need, plans the meal, cooks and cleans up. (okay, so I supervise, she is after all only 9:shocked but you get the idea)
Let us know what you do!
YSIC, Baby C.