Our American Girl Timeline

Here is a fun & exciting way to incorporate American History into your daughter's homeschool education.  If your daughter is in public school, this project could possibly earn her some extra-credit.  You never know!

Also, if you have a child who does not like to read, like I do, but she loves American Girl dolls, here is your opportunity to encourage her to read.  The books are a bit below Chloe's reading level, but that doesn't matter.  Watching her excitement as she finishes each of the six books in the box set,  and then orally recounts what happened in each one, is priceless!  Each book has a "Looking Back" section that shows actual photos from that time period, as well as real historical data.

Items you need for the timeline:

* Large poster board
* Sharpie markers
* American Girl sticker book (I've seen it at Michael's and Hobby Lobby)

(We found the sticker set above at Michael's in December, 2012.  It was on clearance for $1.00)

We love all things American Girl, so when it came time to develop our own homeschool curriculum we chose to navigate American History through these amazing dolls.

We started with Kit Kittredge in 1934, but will jump back to 1764 when we're finished with the Great Depression. 

When we decided to pull Chloe out of K12, her History class was discussing the Great Depression, so Kit was the perfect doll to start with.  We used a ginormous USA map and placed a sticker where Kit lives.

Ohio, you've never looked cuter!

Speaking of cute...

Kit had to be sent off to the American Girl Doll Hospital to have her...ahem...legs reattached.
Kit's definitely adventurous, but good-golly...both of her legs?  What was she doing?! We are glad she's all better though!

American Girl sent Kit back from the hospital in her own special box.

She also came with a Certificate of Good Health, a Get Well Soon card, fuzzy hospital socks, the cutest gown ever, and they even cleaned her up and styled her hair.

Anyway.  Let's get back to our timeline...

We then divided the timeline into 50 year segments.  I used my labeler to make these time periods stand out more.  We made some minor errors in spacing, but all-in-all, it looks great!

This part of the timeline can get a bit crowded if you're not careful.  

Sadly, we are missing Marie-Grace & Cecile.  I hope American Girl comes out with these stickers so we can finish our timeline.  We left space in between Josefina and Kirsten just in case.

We left plenty of space at the bottom so that we could add mini family photographs to help fill in our timeline.  I'm also planning to have Chloe write in some major events that helped shape America.  When we are all finished we will post a completed photo.