American Girl class: Samantha Week 3

We had another great American Girl class this week. We discussed Samantha's Surprise, which is book 3 in the series. The book was a Christmas-themed book. I wish I had paid better attention to my stories and schedule when I made it in advance, we could have had gingerbread men for snack. Oh well, we'll have them next week!

 I had originally planned to make this week's craft last week, another schedule change. It worked fine this week! We used baby food jars (donated from a mom in our homeschool group) to make a mini-terrarium/ glass paperweight. Samantha's Craft Book explained this craft quite well.

Here are the supplies that we used:
One baby food jar per girl
1/4 of one piece of brown felt (they could have had a little less?)
1/6th of a piece of cardstock (8 1/2 X 11)
Craft glue
Piece of satin cord, 7" long
Small objects: seashells, artificial flowers, stones, pinecones or toys (we used shells and two colors of flowers)
Scissors, pencil

The girls traced the opening of the jar onto the white cardstock. (It's important they cut it very well, since this is the closure to the jar!) They cut it out and traced/cut the felt the same way. We glued the cardstock to the brown felt piece and let it dry a little. The girls took their shell and flowers and arranged them onto the white piece. Once it was arranged the way that they liked, they glued their small items down. We put glue onto the rim of the baby food jar and carefully placed it on top of the white piece and small items. Lastly, we took the red cord and glued it around the jar as a decoration. Allow to dry.

They turned out very nice! While they made them, I read this piece about the history of the terrarium.

Tracing gingerbread men, waiting for the tracer...

PLACING ITEMS IN THEIR TERRARIUMS...

THE BRAIDING WEB!

We had "Corn Oysters" for snack. They were like Corn Fritters or Corn Pancakes-- no shellfish involved, I don't know why they call them that! You can find the recipe here.

For our second craft, we made fun foam gingerbread men magnets. I found this pattern online, and printed four-six of them, and cut them out. Each girl got a small piece of fun foam (2 1/2 X 3") and a magnet strip. I found lengths of magnets at Jo-Ann's for really cheap! I used one 12 X 18" piece of brown fun foam for my classes (22 girls). The girls traced the gingerbread man, cut it out and colored on it with a red marker. Then they applied the magnet to the back (it was already sticky). They really liked them!

The 2:00 class...

CHATTING AND CRAFTING...

THE GIRL ON THE RIGHT WAS WEARING AN AMERICAN GIRL HAT!

We also had time to make our braided rugs again. It was very enjoyable class day! I can hardly believe we only have three weeks left!?!