American Girl Class: Kaya#2 Week 5

This week in American Girl class, we discussed the fifth book, Kaya Shows The Way. 

 This was a very simple pattern that I made by looking online at my friend's posts about making dresses. It is a dead link now... :( 

Here is the basic "pattern": 

I cut each piece of fabric 15" X 22" and folded it in half (so it was 11"). Then each of the girls cut a hole in the top middle for the neck, approx 4" across with a small V in the middle of their own dress. They fringed the bottom on both sides, and a little (4-5 times) around the arms. We tied the dress around the waist with an 18" piece of hemp cord. I had each girl string 4 beads onto the hemp and tie knots on each side before they tied it in the back. It was a fun and easy craft!

Here is what the dolls looked like wearing their "Kaya" dresses.

 It was fun to line them all up and see the differences between the dresses and the dolls...

For snack, we had Bannock. You can find the recipe here. The two classes had different bannock. One of the moms made her recipe to be more like corn bread. Some of the girls liked it. It was a very different snack, and I was proud of them for trying it!

Bannock

The Chippewa took these fried cakes along when the tribe was moving or warriors were hunting. They are, however, best eaten hot.

1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup water
4 tablespoons melted butter or bacon drippings
4 tablespoons maple syrup or honey
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 to 4 tablespoons cooking oil (for frying)

In a bowl, combine cornmeal, water, butter or bacon drippings, syrup and salt.

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Drop batter by tablespoonsful into hot oil. Flatten with spatula and fry cakes until crisp and browned on both sides. Add more oil as needed.

Serves 4 to 6.

  After snack, we talked about Salmon. I gave the girls a page from the internet that talked more about salmon. You can find the page here.

You can find and download info about salmon here: http://library.stjosephsea.org/salmon.htm

Girls coloring the salmon page.

I also read two page layouts from Welcome to Kaya's World. We read the pages about salmon and about how dresses were made from animal hides. Both were very interesting!

 The 2:00 class...

The bummer was that all the girls forgot their dolls, so we couldn't try the dresses on them. The girls still enjoyed making the dress, and looked forward to trying them on the dolls at home. 

Also, some of the moms and I have talked about making moccasins in class. I bought a kit at HobbyLobby and made some for myself. I think it would be too difficult to make in class, since the hour is short, and some of the younger girls would have a harder time with it. If the girls are interested, the kits at HobbyLobby are between $10-13, and they usually have a 40% off coupon in the Sunday paper. I did show the moccasins in class this week.

Ruth 3:3
Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

Ezekiel 16:10
I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments.

Luke 12:27
“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.