Tennessee History with American Girls
Two years ago I taught a Tennessee history class to 4-6 grade boys so my son would have the experience of learning state history with friends and we could check out fun field trip locations to make that history come alive! I blogged about my resources here and have an outline of a curriculum you could use with your family!
Now that my daughter is 4th grade, I wanted to give her the same experience but format it in a way that she and her friends would enjoy a kind of "living history" by learning crafts that illustrate the time period of history. Add in American girls and the historical fiction stories and we have a winner of a class!
I hope this post is inspirational to you and you can find that you have a schedule that works well for you! For our family, we scheduled 5 weeks of lessons in the spring and 5 weeks of lessons in the fall. You could easily spread out these lessons to last many more weeks! I do send parents recommended links and videos to watch at home in order to fill in any gaps that I can't cover during class. There is plenty of material to stretch out a full year if you want!
Resources used:
Tennessee History for Kids Booklets (Long March to Tennessee/Work for Freedom)
The Story of America by American Girl
American Girl Craft Books (I'll also link similar projects from online.)
At home, you could supplement the curriculum by reading the American Girl series along with the chapters of the Tennessee History for Kids booklets!
Here is how I organized our lessons in the first semester:
Class 1 - Kaya, TN booklet chapters 1-3
Native American History and Tennessee Geography
We read chapter 1 in our TN history booklet and talked about the page that gives the history of the name "Tennessee." The girls drew a map of TN and we found the counties we live in and where points of interest are within the state (Three Grand Divisions, Mississippi River, Tennessee River, and Cumberland River.) We talked about the different periods of Native American history (Paleo/Archaic/Woodland/Missippian) and about the tribes around the country. The American Girl Kaya is from the Pacific Northwest and we reviewed her story and talked about the culture of the different tribes. As homework, parents were sent links from the TN History for Kids website and to read chapters 2-3 in the booklet. I also talked about the Three Sisters legend. We planted a Three Sisters garden last year and I shared our resources (nature lesson here)
For the craft, I decided our first project would be a yarn doll. This is not a Native American project, but during the craft we did talk about various crafts that different Tribes would make. Our AG book has some great pictures and examples! For instructions on how to make a traditional yarn doll click here!
Class 2 - Felicity, TN booklet chapters 4-6
Revolutionary War/Early Tennessee Settlers
We read chapters 4 and 5 in our TN history booklet and I let the students tell me what they knew about the Revolutionary War. The history of how England felt about colonists coming west of the Appalachian mountains is really interesting and we enjoyed hearing some stories about the Longhunters who found the way through the Cumberland Gap. At home, students watched this video.
We enjoyed looking at the Felicity pictures in the AG book and students who had read the series talked about the Patriots and Loyalists during that time!
The craft this week was a simple sachet. The girls learned their first hand sewing stitch - the back stitch! We used this stitch several times through the semester and I have been so pleased at how well the girls all took to it! I even had dried lavender from our garden to stuff our sachets! For instructions on how to make a traditional sachet click here!
Class 3 - Felicity, TN booklet chapters 7-10
I read chapters 7 and 8 to the students and we talked about how even though battles were happening over on the east coast, there were many conflicts here in Tennessee that had to do with settlers moving into the Native American lands. We learned about some Tennessee girls like Catherine Sherrill, Charlotte Robertson, and Nancy Ward!
I also think this is a great additional article about the early settlers of Tennessee.
Chapters 9 and 10 were given as homework and the students discussed with parents about the events that led up to the Tennessee statehood!
Our craft this week is part one of a two part craft! During the colonial times, embroidery was popular and the girls started their embroidered pillow project! We put our backstitch into practice as we went over the water soluble pen! Since hand embroidery takes a while, the girls took their work home and will complete it during the next class! For instructions on how to get started with embroidery click here!
Class 4 - Caroline, TN booklet chapters 11-14
The War of 1812, History of Slavery in Tennessee, The American Flag Makers
The new nation wasn't peaceful for long when the war of 1812 broke out. We talked about the problems with trade and relationships with France in the historical pages about Caroline in our American Girl book. I found a wonderful picture book that I shared with the students called The Flagmaker by Susan Bartoletti I love how the work of hand sewing by the students brought about discussion and awareness to the work the flagmakers had during the war!
Because it would take a long time to do the hand stitching to finish our pillow project, I helped all the girls finish their pillows by using the sewing machine! That was a fun experience for them all! I plan to use the machine more in our next semester so they can make clothes for their dolls! While I was helping each student at the sewing machine, the girls took turns reading chapters 11 and 12 out loud in class! Homework was to read chapters 13 and 14.
Class 5 - Josefina, Marie-Grace and Cecile, TN chapters 15-18
Trail of Tears, Davy Crockett, the Mexican American War and the Alamo
We began learning about Andrew Jackson in the previous week with his rise to popularity through the battles during the War of 1812. This class focused on the conflict between Jackson and people like Davy Crockett who opposed the Indian Removal Act. It was interesting to learn about the expansion of the Southwest Territories and we were able to have some interesting conversations about the Mexican American War while learning more about the American Girl Josefina. I encouraged the students to check out the picture book Susanna of the Alamo after we read about how she was the only survivor at the Alamo. Homework for the students is to read the rest of the booklet! Parents can also check out extra resources at the TN History For Kids website here!
Our final project of this semester is a cross stitch bookmark! Adding more stitches to our understanding of hand sewing is important to our craft repertoire and I enjoyed showing the girls examples of "samplers" in my book of cross stitch! The book I have is by Jo Verso but any book, website, or video about cross stitch and projects should be great! Here's one that would work well for children!
I will update class 6-10 in the spring!
The girls also loved having a social time to play with their dolls!
Here are a couple more pictures of the inside of The Story of America
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