American Girl Doll Book Club Meeting #1--Meet Felicity!

If you know my girls, you know what they love:  American Girl Dolls!  My girls play with their dolls literally every day.  Kit, Felicity and the gang go to school, get dressed for horseback riding and tea, get adopted from orphanages and ride scooters selling eggs pretty much daily around here.  Our love for the dolls stemmed from a love of the books...of which we have read just about every one.  At least twice.

Let me back up for a minute.  When I taught middle school, I was priveledged to be a part of a monthly mother-daughter book club.  The girls in the group were the kind of girls I wished I was in school:  smart, cute, funny, and confident.  They were sweet and kind and had awesome mothers.  Best of all, they liked being with their moms!  I knew that one day if I had girls, I wanted to be a part of a mother-daughter something with them.  So after a middle of the night idea, our American Girl Mother-Daughter Book Club was born.

Our first "official" meeting was this weekend, and Meet Felicity was this month's selection.  We started the evening with an American Girl craft of beaded rings while we waited for all of the girls to arrive.  Once everyone got here, we circled around the living room and took a silly Meet Felicity quiz which made the girls giggle and got us ready to talk.  Ellie then used her kindergarten "retelling hand" skills to have the girls go over the basic ideas of the book.  Then each girl randomly picked a discussion question to talk over with their moms.  The questions ranged from, "If you could trade places with any character from the book, who would it be and why?" to "How is the main character's life different from yours?"  Each girl did a great job answering their question and it was good practice gaining confidence in speaking in front of a large group!

Next, we talked about the spices Mr. Merriman might have sold in his shop.  Felicity was sent for some ginger for the ginger cakes her mother was planning to make that day, so we played a little "bridal shower" style game of smelling different spices to see if the girls could figure out which one was ginger.  This was fun and everyone guessed correctly.  The prize--homemade authentic ginger cakes made by Laura!  These were so yummy...and I got to keep the leftovers!  They lasted about 2 minutes when we discovered them Saturday morning.  Bennett gobbled them up and demanded I get the recipe and make him more asap.  Maybe you could post that recipe Laura?

The main craft for the evening centered on each girl making her own mob cap.  In colonial times, these were used to keep girls' hair clean (and out of the way) when cooking, cleaning, and playing since they didn't take baths as often as we do today.  Bennett was sweet and cut out all of the circles and I glued the lace around the edges and snipped holes all around the fabric.  Each girl "sewed" a ribbon into the slits and  then the moms custom fit the caps to the girls' heads.  Voila!  A new piece for the dress up bins!

The night concluded with the girls playing until 10pm (gasp) in the American Girl wonderland upstairs.  I think everyone had fun!  Next month:  Meet Kaya

Mary Claire with her finished mob cap

The girls hard at work...yummy ginger cakes await

One of the cutest little mob cap girls

These girls were the envy of all in their costumes!