American Girl Unit Studies: Josefina

We are studying our way through the American Girl historical characters as we learn American history. I've coordinated these units to work with the history sentences we are memorizing with the Classically Catholic Memory program. (I'm blogging about that too!) Josefina lines up with week 3 of Delta Year.

(I also have lesson plans for Kaya, Felicity, Caroline, and Kirsten, check em out!)

Josefina Unit Study

Fiction Books

Six Book Boxed Set
Secrets in the Hills
Josefina's Short Story Collection
Beforever: Sunlight and Shadows*
Beforever: Second Chances*

*Beforever is basically a condensed version the original six books into two stories. I much prefer having my kids read the original six, but I wanted to let you know what's out there.

Non-Fiction Book

Welcome to Josefina's World
Josefina Just for Fun

I was able to snag Josefina Just for Fun a few years back when the series was on clearance. The book is filled with great rainy day activities. All of the Just for Fun books have the same activities with slight variations depending on the girl. If you can get them for a reasonably cheap price, they are worth it!

Lapbook
To create a Josefina lapbook we used mini books from Homeschool Share's free download and created several of our own using their lapbook templates.

The American Girl sticker embellishments were bought at Michael's with a 40% off coupon, and we cut out a few pictures from an American Girl catalogue.

Timeline and Map
We placed Josefina on our timeline and map using the same American Girl stickers that we used in our lapbook.

Because Caroline was not in the sticker book we had to use a cut out from a catalogue, which makes her a bit of a giant!

Foods
For a delicious afternoon snack we made two recipes that can be found in Josefina's Cook Book and in Josefina Just for Fun. The cookies are bizcochitos, which are New Mexico's state cookie. (Hum, maybe we'll make these again when we study New Mexico?!) They call for anise seed, which I dutifully bought, opened, realized that it smells like black licorice, and decided to omit it from the recipe. Yes, the authenticity was gone, but I doubt anyone would have liked them if I used it. The New Mexico Hot Cocoa was made to a T and it was delicious.

Craft
Using instructions from Josefina's Craft Book the kids made coil pots. We still need to paint them... which will probably never happen at this point :).

Online Games
Finally, we played a Josefina game at americangirl.com!

Be saints, it's worth it!
Lisa