So tonight was week 5 of Julie. In this book Julie travels across the United States in a covered wagon as part of the Bicentenial Celebration. So for our craft we HAD to do something
RED,
WHITE and
BLUE! Believe it or not after SIXTY SEVEN nights of American Girl Club we have NEVER decorated t-shirts until this week! So this week we TYE-DYED!
So here are the girls waiting in line (sort of! LOL) to dye their shirts.
We had them tie them up in rubber bands inside before they came out to get in line. One of the mom's volunteered to be in charge of the actual dying process. (Thank goodness!) The dye we used is called Tulip One Step. I bought it at JoAnn's and I must say it was super simple! It already comes in a sqeeze bottle and you just add water and squeeze the dye on. There are good instructions, rubber bands and plastic gloves in each package. (We used 6 bottles to make 20 shirts. I would have liked to have had 2 more bottles. But I bought all they had in red in blue.)
Here is one of the girls dying her shirt. I got them ahead of time and washed them all before I brought them.
Here are a bunch of the shirts sitting in ziploc bags ready to go home. The mom's will have to let them sit overnight and then wash them before the girls can wear them.
The only casualty of the night was the hands of the sweet mama that helped with all the dying! LOL
Yeah, we should have put those gloves on her first! But, it was starting to rain and in the rush to beat the rain she forgot to put on the gloved! LOL
Another thing we did that went along with the book is I had all the girls signa Pledge of Rededication like they did in the Julie book. Our pledge said...
Pledge
of
Rededication
To commemorate the completion of three years of studying American History together at American Girl Club we hereby dedicate ourselves anew to the precepts of our founding fathers: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
We affix our signatures this day – May the 10th Two Thousand and Eleven
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And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Before I had the girls sign it I told them that it is my hope after all these weeks and weeks of studying American History together that they have developed a deeper love, understanding and appreciation for our Country. I hope that they will be very patriotic Americans and that they will never take for granted and always value our country. I plan on framing the original they signed and hang it in my office. All these girls mean the world to me and I will always treasure having something they signed. I also will be scanning it and emailing it to the mom's to make copies for the girls too.
After all the tye-dying we also had a special speaker! One of girls grandmothers came and talked to us about what it was like to be an adult in the 70's. She also brought a lot of clothes and misc objects from the 70's. the girls and the mom's loved this! It's always fun to have a special guest, and this one was super!
Here she is showing the girls a mini skirt dress she wore in the 70's
Showing us a rotary phone.
More MOD mini dresses and a GROOVY pantsuit! (The one on the far right side is a maternity dress!)
A crocheted vest and a coat we all LOVED!
Bell bottoms! (We noticed on these that the pant legs were actually wider than the waistband!)
She did a great job telling the girls what the 70's were like and also telling them about the contrast of how the 50's and 60's had been. She talked to them about a lot of inventions that came out of the 70's like the post-it note, velcro and the Apple Computer.
We are almost to the end of all the books! If week 3 of Julie hadn't been postponed for bad weather next week would be our last week! But, we will still be meeting for week 3 and we are having our first ever family night in a couple weeks too. So, it's not quite over yet! I have also decided I am not quite ready to give it up! So next year we will be meeting once a month to go through all the American Girl friends books. (Elizabeth, Ivy, Ruthie, Emily and Nellie.) This will give the girls a chance to still get together on a regular basis and me a chance to hang on to them all for one more year!
Happy Homeschooling,
Jamin
P.S. Tonight one of the girl told me she thought we should start going through all the "Dear America" books next year. I said "There are a zillion of those! We would never get through them all!" She looked at me, smiled and said "Exactly!" There are no words to say how much she blessed my heart! :^)
