Children's Reading List: American Girls Marie-Grace and Cecile and Lapbook
12/13/2011
My daughter is rapidly working her way through the American Girl book collection. She has now finished reading the stories of American Girls Marie-Grace and Cecile.
These two girls are brand new and belong to the same time period - 1853. They are friends and their stories overlap and intertwine. So instead of 6 books about 1 girl (the pattern for all of the other American Girl book series), for these gals there are 3 books about Marie-Grace and 3 books about Cecile - all taking place in New Orleans in 1853.
I did not read these books alongside my daughter, but I did ask a lot of questions as she worked through them. I like the fact that American Girl chose to address the race issue with these girls head-on (Marie-Grace is white, Cecile is a free black girl). This lays some ground work for the next girl in line to study - Addy - who is a slave girl in the south in 1864. I admit that I'd rather shy away from discussing slavery and some of the difficult points in American history, but these books have brought it up in a sensitive way which has helped open up a dialogue for my daughter and me.
My daughter made a lapbook for these girls, as she's done for all of the American Girls we've read about so far. A lapbook is simply a fancy book report or character study. All of the lapbook templates we use can be found here and are free for anyone to use.
Since Marie-Grace and Cecile are brand new to the American Girl collection, there aren't any lapbook materials specific to them, their location or their time period. So we used more of the "generic" templates that can be used for any of the girls and created a few of our own to make specific for these girls.
My daughter is rapidly working her way through the American Girl book collection. She has now finished reading the stories of American Girls Marie-Grace and Cecile.
These two girls are brand new and belong to the same time period - 1853. They are friends and their stories overlap and intertwine. So instead of 6 books about 1 girl (the pattern for all of the other American Girl book series), for these gals there are 3 books about Marie-Grace and 3 books about Cecile - all taking place in New Orleans in 1853.
I did not read these books alongside my daughter, but I did ask a lot of questions as she worked through them. I like the fact that American Girl chose to address the race issue with these girls head-on (Marie-Grace is white, Cecile is a free black girl). This lays some ground work for the next girl in line to study - Addy - who is a slave girl in the south in 1864. I admit that I'd rather shy away from discussing slavery and some of the difficult points in American history, but these books have brought it up in a sensitive way which has helped open up a dialogue for my daughter and me.
My daughter made a lapbook for these girls, as she's done for all of the American Girls we've read about so far. A lapbook is simply a fancy book report or character study. All of the lapbook templates we use can be found here and are free for anyone to use.
Since Marie-Grace and Cecile are brand new to the American Girl collection, there aren't any lapbook materials specific to them, their location or their time period. So we used more of the "generic" templates that can be used for any of the girls and created a few of our own to make specific for these girls.
Here's my daughter with her lapbook cover - her own drawing of the two girls.
Inside page 1 - with flaps describing the personalities of Marie-Grace and Cecile, fashions, fun facts, houses, best friends, a description of New Orleans in 1853.
Inside page 2 - with flaps about pets, hobbies, favorite past times, fun facts, two interesting facts about the year 1853 and a map showing New Orleans.
5 American Girls down and 6 more to go... my daughter has already moved on to the next girl and is on track to finish her books before Christmas.
5 American Girls down and 6 more to go... my daughter has already moved on to the next girl and is on track to finish her books before Christmas.
0 comments:
Post a Comment