Meet Josefina

We finished up our study of Kaya and now we are moving on to Josefina.

Josefina represents the history of New Mexico.  She lives with her father and older sisters.  Josefina's mother has passed away, and Josefina feels lost without her.

We will be studying New Mexico and some basic Spanish vocabulary.  Our crafts will include an appliqued treasure box, glass-bead necklaces, and a coil pot.  The ideas for these crafts are from Josefina's Craft Book.

Here are some of the books that we will be using.

Here are a few fun links to games for Josefina.

Josefina's fiesta
Josefina's Santa Fe market adventure
Josefina's piano
This looks like a great study.  We have not done an official study on New Mexico yet.  While we were looking though our Eat Your Way Through the USA cookbook, we discovered that in New Mexico they make a Milky Way cake so we just might have to add that to our list of enrichment activities.

Kaya, An American Girl

We have finally wrapped up our unit on World War II.  Honestly, we could have studied WWII for a full year and not covered everything.

So now, we are working on Kaya, An American Girl.  I decided to make this a mostly project-based unit even though we do A LOT of projects for most of our unit studies anyway.  We are hands on learners.

Kaya is from the Pacific Northwest, and she was a Nez Perce Indian.  Her time period is 1764.

For this study, we are learning about Appaloosa horses, the Nez Perce Indians, Chief Joseph, tepees (which the correct spelling is actually tipi).  We will probably learn about coyotes, salmon, and buffalo too.

We have already made a small tipi, a dream catcher, a corn husk doll, a loom weaving project, and a dress for one of our American Girl dolls.  I know I will be adding to this list as we read through the book but this is the plan for now.

The book, Meet Kaya.

C12 made this dress.

A10 made this dress.

The front of C12's tipi.

The back!

The front of A10's tipi.

The back!

This is our little corn husk family complete with a little baby corn husk.  Aren't they corny?  These were fun to make but they were a little tricky too.

A10's dream catcher.

C12's dream catcher.

I got the idea for the weaving loom from my buddy, Heather, over at Blog, She Wrote.

This is an example of the weaving.  I have to say this is pretty neat.

This is the corn husky mom wearing one of the finished weaving projects.  I think she likes it!

Well, I think this is a good example of a project-based unit, and we are still not finished yet.  We have been having a great time!

I am linking a few fun games from the American Girl website.
Kaya's catch of the day.
Kaya's mountain escape.
Kaya's search.

Gearing up for WWII!

We finished our literary study of Helen Keller, and we are now moving onto a study on World War 2.  Helen Keller herself went to many hospital during the war to try and cheer up wounded soldiers and give them hope.

I have collected many resources and spent a lot of time learning about this tragedy on my own.  

Molly's World.

American History Encyclopedia.  This books includes time lines.

Who Was Anne Frank?  These are great little biographies.

Albert Einstein biography.

A great, great story.  Number the Stars.

Lily's Victory Garden.  We have read this many times.

Audio book so we can listen in the car.

DVD on Anne Frank and The Diary of Anne Frank.

This is a really neat book of photos of Anne Frank.

World War II for Kids activity book.  I have picked out a few activities for us to try.

Holocaust. 

The Butterfly.

Molly's craft book.

The Bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Music from WWII.  Please take a minute and listen to this.  Very nice!

A few great links:

BBC
Children of the Holocaust
Hereos of the homefront

 

American Girl Doll store at North Point.

So for A10's birthday, we headed out to the American Girl store.  This has been a birthday tradition for a few years now.

This time I decided to take a few pictures.  Many of my pictures did not even turn out well because I was constantly being pushed about by squealing, little girls running through the store with their dolls. The store was packed to capacity.  Considering today's economy, I was amazed by the amount of money being spent.  Someone obviously has money, and I believe it is the American Girl store.

Here is a look inside:

This is the outside entrance.

Kaya

Lots of books!

The bitty babies.

Addy, I love Addy!

Kanani

Rebecca

A display for Kanani.

Kanani's dress.

Stuff.

Stuff.

You guessed it, more stuff!

We always have fun at the American Girl store.  We also spend lots of money there even though these AMERICAN girls are made in China.

Laurel wreaths.

Our last project from Ancient Rome.  Finally!  In Ancient Rome, a laurel wreath meant one was victorious.   You can read more here:  Laurel wreath

We used this book again.

A description of what to do.

Cut out the template.

Make about 20 for each person.

Pipe cleaners.  Bend 2 pipe cleaners into a circle shape and twist together.

Add your leaves to the pipe cleaners.  You have to put a little glue on the inside of the leaves once you have folded them.

The finished Laurel wreath.

My plan was to make the Laurel wreaths for my kids but they decided to make them for their American Girl Dolls so here are the victorious American Girl Dolls.

Lily Jane.

Annie May.

They look pretty victorious to me. 

We are going to say Ciao to Ancient Rome for now, but I know we will revisit at a later date.