American Girl Co-op Class

We had a great time in our Survey of American Girls Co-op Class this fall. I taught the class and had 7 wonderful girls along for the fun. I had been wanting to teach this class for a few years, but the time was finally right. We started with the six original girls and did some stories, crafts, food and geography for each of the girls.

For each girl, we would do the following:

• do a map of the state the girl was from- including the city and any other notable items from that area
• a map of the US during the time that girl would have lived
• a craft or two that was popular at the time of the girl- some time periods we did a few crafts
• sampled food from that time- we make a raspberry flummery for Felicity and we made butter for Kirsten
• watched portions of some of the movies while we did crafts and projects (Felicity and Kit)

For years I've been collecting these books which used to be sold by The Pleasant Company. I have been successful at library sales and Paper Back Swap. We get a lot of ideas from these for food and parties.

The craft books provide a lot of ideas as well.

The girls made clay pots when we talked about Josefina along with a beaded bracelet. We made sachets for Felicity and trinket boxes for Samantha.

Silhouettes were popular during Samantha's time.

The girls put together the poster during the last class while watching the Kit movie. That was their pick although we hadn't gotten to Kit yet. 

I think all the girls had a grand time and I plan to offer another semester to finish out the survey. I think we'll try more cooking next time and of course more craft projects. I picked up another resource last night which will provide a lot of fun. I can't tell you what it is until after December 25th though...shhhhh.

The American Girl theme provides a great framework for a co-op class. I highly encourage you to try it!