History with American Girl Dolls!

 Next year, my friend, Jen, is planning a history unit using American Girl dolls and their stories.  Her daughter’s favorite doll is Kirsten.  I’ve been sewing clothes for her dolls.  So much fun!  Pick a historical period.  (BTW the AG dolls are well research.  Look at this Smithsonian article. )  The AG doll on the right is modeling print fabric from Hancock’s of Paducah.  The other doll is in a flannel shift.  I use these free patterns.

As a child, I found the pioneers captivating and loved anything to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series.  What did pioneers wear? What are pioneer toy crafts?  What are pioneer games?  There are loads of Little House books, cookbooks, and craft books.  Start at the library!  Look at this post for more ideas, too.  Here are free pioneer printables, including paper dolls.  Here is more inspiration for your unit study.  Here are complete plans for a comprehensive unit study.  

Check out Studio Quirk’s Historical Costumes and Research.  My friend, Louise’s sister is Juanita Leisch.  She has done significant research into Civil War era clothes.  BTW children usually wore the same fabrics and styles as adults. Her books are invaluable! 

I’m betting your kiddo will want to make a quilt.  I used cheater panels to make AG doll quilts.  Your kiddos can sew around the squares, rather than price together an entire quilt. I bought two panels, shown below, to make four mini-quilts.

Glencoe Literature Lessons

 Glencoe used to publish excellent study guides for literature, busy has discontinued them.  I downloaded a ton before the site went offline; however, there were many lessons previously available I didn’t know I needed.  Happily,  Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool often has the lessons, such as The Red Badge of Courage.  I struggle to locate specific study guide on the Easy Peasy website.  Instead, I google the name of the book with the word ‘lesson’ to locate Glencoe versions of the study guides for literature.

Co-op Class Structure

  Before teaching Co-op classes, I taught in both private and public schools.  Schools have seven (or eight) classes each day, use a block schedule.  Block Scheduling has three or four classes each day; although, there are many variations.  Additionally, I had been an adjunct instructor at a local college.  

Co-op scheduling is more like teaching at a college.  The classes are for longer blocks of time.  When I was teaching Co-op and still teaching in a public schools, our class met weekly, after school, for an hour and a half.  When I started teaching Co-op exclusively, my classes met weekly for two and a half hours, plus a mid-morning break. The younger students met for ninety minutes in the afternoon.   Ten years ago we moved across the state to a new Co-op.  Our local Co-op meets three times per week.  

When you’re teaching for over two hours in a class, it’s important to vary activities.  Instead, divide the time into fifteen to twenty minute activities.  Ninety minutes decided by fifteen is six.  Every class we try to do five or six different activities.  (Two and a half hours divided by fifteen is ten, which implies breaking class into seven to ten activities.)  Here’s the rub.  The activities must foster instruction—not kill time.  You need alternatives to lectures!  Right now I’m teaching Anatomy.  Below is a typical schedule.  Take a look!

9:15–9:30: Review

Anatomy review of bones, lobes, names of muscles, flow of blood through the heart.  

9:30-9:50: Slide Decks and Lecture

Here I teach.  This is the lecture portion.  I try not to exceed twenty minutes.

9:50–10:10: Application

I vary activities among card sorts, POGILS, short videos, and clay or paper models.

10:10–10:40: Labs

I also extra time for labs, which might be a wet lab, dissection, or microscope work.  The labs vary enormously.  Recently, we did a simulated blood lab, sheep heart dissection, and sketched microscope slides.  

10:40-10:45: Clean-up.

Smithsonian Resources

 We live near Washington D.C.  Our family has made over 50 visits to D.C.  I spent one summer as a teacher volunteer and stayed in a dorm at Catholic University.  I love to visit D.C.  There is always something fun to see or do.  You could spend an entire day just walking around the Monuments and Memorials.  We park underground at Union Station.  It’s a three mile hike to the Lincoln Memorial from Union Station.  There is a subway from Union to stops near the Smithsonian and another closer to the major monuments or the White House.  Below are some of the resources.

 Did you know there is a hands-on lab, the Draper Smart!Lab in the basement of the American History Museum in Washington D.C.?  Here is more information; I’m still unclear which experiments they’re actually doing.  However, it’s free.  The Smithsonian does have teacher resources.  Here are resources for the Zoo in D.C.  All of the Smithsonian museums and the zoo are free.  Like me, you may come away with some opinions about the quality of the various museums.  Personally, I come away from the zoo feeling like I’ve had a long lecture, rather than seeing loads of animals.  I’ve been disappointed with the American History Museum’s exhibits lately, too. However, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Building Museum, and the National Gallery of Art are treasures.  

The teachers’ guides are scattered everywhere. Here  is the Natural History Educator guide.  Here are Smithsonian Art Guides for teachers.  Here is the  Smithsonian Learning Lab with Webinars.  The educator programs are strangely specific, such as Building Civic Engagement with Postage Stamps.  Here are educator guides for The National Postal Museum, next door to Union Station, in D.C.  Here is the Hirshhorn guide.  Here is the National Museum of American History educator guide.  

The Air and Space Museum has Educator Professional Development, Teacher Innovator Institute, Learning Resources,  There are two Air and Space Museums, one on The Mall, near the White House, and another, the Steven F. Unvarnished-Hazy Center, in Virginia, close to Dulles Airport.  Here are directions to the space museum near Dulles.  If you go to either air and space museum, scedule a group visit with a docent.  The docents are volunteers, often retired members of the military.  These folks are both interested in air and space and interesting.  The docents are volunteers and enhance your experience.

History Projects!

 Good Will has this People Long Ago resource box about pioneers.  I thought similar kits could serve as inspiration for History projects.  Look!  There are pioneer clothes!  You could sew historic clothes! There are free American Girl patterns.  These are discontinued sewing patterns for the original Pleasant Company dolls.  The original dolls’ clothes were extensively researched; however, people would not have had many clothes. (I may or may not be currently obsessed with sewing American Girl period clothes.)  Your project could include doll clothes!  It could also include songs, money, historic events, and field-trips!  Create a diorama or a lapbook.  Make a video or a slide deck!  Write a play based on a figure from the period.  Have a blast!

Lakeshore Learning has other kits for inspiration.

Good Educational Material at Good Will

 Good Will has several interesting listings.  Look at this Rocks and Mineral Kit.

I did bid on this pioneer kit for my friend who teaches History.

Look at these math sets.

Winter Olympics

  I love the Olympics!  Science Sparks has Easy Winter Olympics STEM, with simple materials, such as paper plates and ice cubes to examine the underlying science involved in different events.  Little Bins has Winter Olympics Activities; here are great ideas from the Demo Guy.  Frugal Fun has LEGO Builds.  Decorate with these Winter Olympics Activities from Red Ted.  How about Coding?  Finally NBC has 100 ways to celebrate Milan Cortina 2026!  Yeah!