American Girl class: Addy Week 1

Our American Girl classes began again this week after our Christmas break. Our co-op is offering some new classes, so I have some new girls in my classes that I am looking forward to getting to know! Over the break, I was busy reading the Addy books and getting ready for the American Girl class. I enjoyed the books! The topics are somewhat sensitive (slavery, Civil War era, segregation, etc.,) so as a parent you may need to temper what your child is ready to hear and learn. I will try to be gentle, but slavery was real and it is an important part of our history to understand.

In book 1, Meet Addy, she flees the life of slavery by running away with her mother. It is a great story, and I know I cheered for Addy & Momma during the whole book! Here are some highlights from our first week of Addy:

Our craft was a cowrie shell necklace and a kerchief. We used an overhand knot to tie the shell onto the 20" black cord. Then we tied a regular knot to slide them over the girls' heads.  They were quick to make, but I think the girls enjoyed making them!

Girls showing off their cowrie shell necklaces...

Just like the one Addy had, which was her great-grandmother's!

Before we ate snack, we talked about what we had for breakfast and lunch that day. Was it the same thing? No, it was different for all of us. We all couldn't imagine having to eat only cornmeal mush for breakfast and dinner each day. We discussed how Addy may not have eaten lunch, because they didn't have anything to eat... The girls did like the fried cornbread that we had, but the mush, not so much!

We had cornmeal mush for snack, since that is what Addy ate in our book. You can find the recipe here.

We did our geography notebooks, with pages on North Carolina, Pennsylvania and the United States map.

(see links below to print)

For the kerchief, I gave each girl one 18" X 20" piece of fabric. Then I showed them how to tie the opposite corners so it was a little sack. Addy has a kerchief like this on the cover of the first book, ours was a little smaller. In her kerchief, Addy kept her necklace, half-dime, a drinking gourd, and maybe food.

When I asked the girls to show me their necklaces, several pulled them out of their kerchiefs!

Cuties!

You can find the geography pages here:
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, United States-- we found the state she first lived in (N.C.) and also found the state she travelled to (Penn.), and we discussed which states she may have travelled through on her journey with her Momma. Here are two more pages about Philadelphia that the girls can print and color on their own:
Liberty Bell dot-to-dot
Independence Hall coloring page

I als read several pages out of Welcome to Addy's World, about slavery and we discussed the "Underground Railroad" and what that term meant. I wanted to read another book, but we ran out of time!

It was a fun day and I am looking forward to Addy Week 2!