Kaya:An American Girl Study

As most of my friends now know, we have decided to homeschool a few of our kids next year.  This is not a decision against our sweet Classical school, and Corynne will continue her education there next year.  This is a decision we made to rein our family in, to refocus, to simplify, and to reset our priorities.  I am excited to get to teach Lyndsey and Lauren next year, and I believe we will have a great year together.  

The girls and I started a unit study this month while the big kids were gone to youth camp.  We began reading the Kaya:An American Girl series.  This is actually an introduction to our Time Travelers History Study we will be working through next year.  I am incorporating units with the American Girl from that time period.  Kaya lived in the first time frame New World Explorers.

Shhhhh...the girls did not realize we were doing "school work"!  This was just a fun summer activity to do while Colleen took a nap.  It took us 3 weeks to read all 6 books in the boxed series.  After the first book, I did purchase the set of books for my ipad from Audible.com so that someone else could read to us!!

We have done all kinds of crafts from Kaya's time.  Lyndsey learned to weave.  Lauren has been doing this for a while, but this was the first time Lyndsey has made a potholder.

We stitched together a small "berry bag" that Kaya would use to gather berries and bring them back to camp.

We made bead and leather braided bracelets.

We prepared a few recipes from Kaya's books Dried Fruit Mix and Pemmican.

Then we served a salmon dinner with our recipes.

Our final project was a lapbook of activities to help us learn and put some facts on paper to remember.  Lauren and Lyndsey have enjoyed showing JM little snips of knowledge from these books!

 First section... 

 opened up...

 Second section...

 opened up...

This was a fun study, and the girls are asking who we are studying next.  Actually, it will not be an American Girl.  Next week we are going to dive into a 4th of July/Independence Day Lapbook Study that should use our very hot afternoons more effectively!