american girl book club.

A few years ago a friend of mine told me about having an American Girl Book Club.  Now...I've never been into the American Girl dolls and I thought that's all that American Girl was but after we chatted about this super fun book club I wished that my girls were old enough to attend.  

In January Miriam and Emma came home all excited about the book their teacher was reading about the civil war.  As we talked more I found out that they were reading "Meet Addy", one of the American Girl books.  I love that American Girl has created stories about girls that are aroud 8-10 years old in different time periods of our country's history and in the midst of the story you learn some wonderful details about the era in which the girls lived.  There's even a little history section in the back that gives more details about what they ate, fashion of the time, what boys and girls did, and other fascinating information.

I said to Miriam and Emma (and Gracie, too, of course)...."we could have an American Girl Book Club!"  I explained that we'd need to send out invitations...and before I even said anything else they were all for an American Girl Book Club.

We wanted to have a Mother/Daughter Book Club and decided that each of the girls would invite 3-4 friends and their moms from school and church.  We chose to start with the book, "Meet Felicity".  

Each Mother/Daughter would need to dress in the time period and also bring a dish that was from a recipe of the era or something that they ate in 1774.  We also let everyone on our invite list know that we would read a book one month and then the next month we would have our book club get together.  We invited 12 Mother/daughters...which meant 24 people minimum (not counting me with my 3 girls) if everyone showed up.  I told the girls, usually when you have a party you can plan on about 50% of the people attending.  So we'll probably have about 10-12 people....

Everyone attended but one mom and her daughter!  We were so excited!

We were so thrilled when all of our friends showed up to the party and had totally gotten into dressing up and bringing a recipe!   It was so fun to see all of the little girls in homemade, patched together costumes (I went to Goodwill and found some skirts, used some stuff from around the house, etc.).  It was sweet to see them talking together and looking so much like they had stepped out of 1774.

Here are some of our details:

*The girls and I made invitations one month in advance of our first book club party.  We included details of dressing in the time period and bringing a recipe dish from the time period as well as the book we had chosen, "Meet Felicity".

*With the help of some wonderful moms in the group, the girls and I created a really pretty table that looked very 1774 with china and pewter for each of the girls to eat on.  (I think this was key to pulling off a great party...knowing that you can call other moms to help you and your girls out).

*We researched the time period beyond the book looking for famous women, politics of the time, fashion, what women and men did, the state of the country (colonies), what games the kids played, what school was like, what kinds of homes they had, plumbing and electricity of 1774 (zilch), etc. 

*We create a timeline game with events that could be taped onto the timeline that we put on a huge table.

*For our book discussion we made a little list of questions that we could discuss.  We divided into two groups since our club is so big.  Half way through our discussion we divided into different groups again so that we could hear other people's thoughts on the book.

*The girls and I learned a dance from 1774 that we taught to the other moms and daughters.

*We had our book discussion before we ate.

*At the end of the book club party we decided on our next book, "Meet Kaya" and another mom and daughter volunteered to do the next book club party.  (Actually, 2 moms decided they would plan the next event together.)

*We talked about Abigail Adams (1st lady to the 2nd President of the United States) and how she had written over 1,000 letters in her lifetime.  So...each of the girls and their mothers wrote one another a letter with a pen that had a feather taped to it (we would have like to have used ink and quill but couldn't find either one...)

*I had a sewing activity and games activities planned as well but there just wasn't time.  We said the book club would go from noon-2pm...and really it could have gone all day with all of the fun we had lined up.  It was nice to know that we weren't running low on activities.  It was also nice for the girls to just have fun playing together with no structure.

*We had fun!  All of the girls played after we ate and ran around like crazy and had a really great time.  Moms helped to clean up which I really appreciated and absolutely had not planned on.

*We collected names, phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing addresses before everyone left.  Most of these moms I had not met until they came to the book club party.  Many of them I didn't have a phone number for because the girls had just delivered the invitations at school.  

*I sent the collected names list out to everyone in the group, thanked everyone, and let everyone know who to contact about the next book club party.

If you have girls in the 5-10 year old range this is such a fun way to learn!  Once my girls grow out of/or finish the American Girl books I'm hoping that the book club will keep going with other age appropriate books...I love these women and their girls and I know I look forward to seeing them all every other month.

learn. LIFE.