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.