Memoirs of American Heritage Girls with Jackie

New Year - Explorer I

2010-09-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

Well now we've been through the first 2 levels of American Heritage Girls already. I haven't been diligent with this blog but any memories I save here when you add them all together at the end of 13 years...it will seem like a lot so I'm satisfied.

Our first meeting of the school year went off without a hitch, we started our meeting with me teaching the girls more about prayer and how to pray. Then they submitted anonymous prayer requests on slips of paper (that I did not read aloud) and we prayed together for the needs of the girls in the group. Some of the girls wrote down lots of requests!

Afterwards we went down to the kitchen to learn about cooking. We made super healthy muffins and we put a secret ingredient in...baby food sweet potatoes! The girls all screamed but they absolutely loved the muffins. Then we wrote out the scientific method in our journals and applied it to what we thought would happen if we put eggs in vinegar overnight. Of course I came prepared with two eggs that has already been soaking in vinegar for a tad over 24 hours, the acid in the vinegar dissolved the eggshell! The uncooked egg you could practically see through the membrane, which stayed in tact, and the hard boiled egg could be bounced. The girls took home their own set of eggs in vinegar to see for themselves.

Our next meeting is going to be a trip to Sur le Table in Rookwood Commons, a cookwares store I love.

Christmas Party!

2009-12-08T07:50:00.001-08:00

Well the year has been going great so far! We've taken a couple of field trips, we visited the historical replica ships of the Nina and Pinta when they sailed into Newport back in September. The girls loved getting on actual ships, we were even lucky enough to get one of the men who sail the ship to give us a tour and explain what we were seeing! He was fabulous! He even told us how the men on the ship got their jobs, what their work entailed and how they lived below deck. It was really cool.

We also went on a field trip to help the girls who were new earn their Golf Badge. Jackie has already earned it so she got an activity patch instead.

We've earned the World Heritage Badge together this year, now THAT was fun. The first meeting of the year was all about Japan and I brought in a Bento Box filled with foods and treats. Plus I had Steve go to Ban Thai and pick up some take-out sushi for the girls to see. Some California rolls and also salmon. The next country was Morocco and we ate cous cous and had ginger cookies. I put some Moroccan spices in a crock pot and the room smelled delicious!

The next two countries were Australia and Germany, but I combined those into one meeting. Last meeting we started the Photography badge. I had Steve hook my laptop up to my projector so I could project the images I wanted to talk about onto the wall for the girls to see well. They had a hard time paying attention, and Jackie herself was a little too excitable to sit still, so when I review I'm going to think of a fun way to reteach this information. We are having to split the badge between the first meeting of December to the first meeting of January and there's no way they'll remember. I'll make a pictorial "quiz" for them.

Now today is a Christmas party, just for the class! Everything is always so structured so they can achieve, and that's great, but today is all about unstructured fun. I'm going to set up game stations, and card playing stations, craft stations, fingernail polishing, coloring, Christmas movie watching...and I need to come up with a group game or two that we could play to start the day. I'll end the day by reading them The Legend of the Candy Cane and giving them small candy canes to eat while I read. This should be a blast for them! Just some unstructured fun time, that's what it's all about today.

Ice Cream Social Open House!

2009-08-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the Ice Cream Social open house and I am so excited for the new year! I've been thinking about what I want to do with the girls, and there were some things we didn't get the time to do this summer that I want to do...this is going to be a great year! I can't believe the girls are already in 3rd grade!!!!!!! I know how fast time flies with Candy graduating last year and I plan to be more diligent about posting her activities here.

So tonight is sign-up night and tomorrow is our first meeting. Today I'm going to plan the badges I will be working on through May, a rough outline. That worked for me last year, and having an idea of what I'm doing is helpful for those times when I come across fun activities to incorporate. I'll add a picture later on!

Need to be more diligent with this blog!!!!

2009-04-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we learned more about manners, this time we went over introductions and we also talked about the kinds of manners children from 100 years ago were to use. They thought that was pretty funny. For example children had to bow when they entered a room with their parents or other adults. And they had to refer to address their parents as "Sir" or "Madam". What became very frustrating to me was the fact that I found it very hard to find websites that would give me very much really good information about manners for children out there. I found a zillion that were selling something but very few that told me what I needed to know. I need to remedy that myself! LOL

But the girls had fun.

We also had a tea party on Sunday. Jackie really loved that!

Meeting Today...Etiquette!

2009-03-03T20:30:00.000-08:00

We started the Social Skills and Etiquette Badge. I read a Madeline book about manners, everything from introductions, greetings, how to handle receiving and thanking for gifts...all that jazz.

Then I taught them in depth telephone etiquette which was surprisingly very difficult for them! But most of them don't answer the telephone at home yet and they are just starting to call friends so this was a great time to start this badge. I found a great website with etiquette rules I used: A to Z of Manners and Etiquette

The girls had so much fun practicing with phones mom and I brought in to use!

Home Decorating Badge

2009-02-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

#1

#2

#3 She made a gingerbread house for a table decoration this Christmas.

#4

Cooking Badge

2009-02-03T19:29:00.000-08:00

#1

#2

#3 February 3, 2009 Jackie made cupcakes and tonight she decorated them for a family night treat (and for her doll Tika's birthday). She used measuring spoons, mixing bowls, measuring cup, an icing press with interchangeable tips for decorating.

#6

Recently...

2009-02-03T19:16:00.000-08:00

Wow it's been so long since I've written.... and so much happens! We had a meeting today, mom made the girls homemade Valentine's Cards to make and a Valentine's gift for their mothers too. A weekend ago they had a campout but I couldn't go, I was sick. In December we had a movie night at the empty Jim Carver & Sons showroom, we watched Tinkerbell's newest movie and a Christmas movie, Frosty the Snowman. The girls loved that. I need to have another movie night. This coming Sunday they go roller skating, she'll love that. She got roller skates for Christmas this year.

Right now in our meetings we are working on the Personal Hygiene Badge. I've really gone overboard teaching them way more than the badge requires. Some of these girls aren't going to learn a thing about hygiene at home. I'm not only reinforcing it but I'm creating a booklet that is age appropriate (2nd grade) too for them to take home. Since it's January we really emphasized germ avoidance. We have a dental hygienist coming in to help us too. This should be a lot of fun!

Monday November 10th Roller Skating!

2008-11-10T20:24:00.000-08:00

Well I haven't been very good about updating this blog!!!!! And we've been very busy too, I'll have to go back and reconstruct some memories! In spite of leaving school today immediately after a Veteran's Day assembly because she said she was sick we did end up going to our AHG roller skating event. They had such a blast! Oh and yes, I know the pictures are blurry, I hate using flash and these were indoor pictures, not flash, moving objects. Blur blur blur! LOL

Jackie is wearing a red t-shirt on the right hand side:

Jackie and Lexis Black, one of her AHG BFF's....

The kids like it when they turn the lights out for some songs!

Here she is looking like a sour puss because she says her belly hurts or her back hurts (she complained about both but neither inspired her to just sit down and rest for long! LOL):

This was a Christian Skate Night at a local roller rink and the kids had the opportunity to slow things down and talk about Jesus and the importance of having him in their life. Then they had the opportunity to confess that they've sinned and ask Jesus to forgive them, this is what you see pictured below:

So Much Fun!

2008-09-30T23:41:00.000-07:00

Jackie had so much fun today at American Heritage Girls! For one it was a HUGE crowd again. We are combining with the younger girls for 1 badge which will take a total of 3 weeks to complete. Native American badge. Then to go to a recreated Indian village, SunWatch Indian Village and Archeological Park.

Anyhoo we had a long wait in the gym before we left the school, Jackie was finishing up a test on the computer and there was a girl who had accidently forgotten and got on the bus...when she came in I don't know what came over the girls but you know how once one of them gets an idea they all jump on??? Well some girl ran up to her screaming and throwing her arms around her neck hugging her "JACKIE!!!!" and within like seconds 10 more girls, screaming like groupies, were running up to her hugging her! ROFL!!!!!!!!! It was the funniest scene ever but of course I'm sure she loved it.

Today we signed "Thank You" cards that we will mail to our local Veterans. We then watched an 8 minute segment of a DVD from the library about The American Flag to complete part of their "Our Flag" Badge. They then made small bowls for jewelry or coins out of clay which we will paint next week during our meeting. Then to do a better job of learning about Native American picture writing I found something out of a much more age appropriate book to share with them and they worked in pairs and I demonstrated on a white board. The room we are in is awesome! It has a large flat screen TV mounted to a wall, a refrigerator, a kitchen sink, tons of space, 2 large tables, and about 30 soft covered chairs! Plus it's very bright.

Next week we are going to paint our bowls, play a Native American game, sample some pumpkin pie ice cream or some small treat and continue working on Our Flag. The girls also led the flag ceremony this week. We had a blast! No pictures, I forgot my camera!!!!

Homecoming Parade!

2008-09-19T20:30:00.001-07:00

Tonight was the big homecoming...we won the game against Blanchester by the way, but here are pictures from the American Heritage Girls on parade!

Here is my princess!

The rest of the pictures show my car decorated and so forth. The close-ups of the poster (mom made it) and the magnets on my car (mom made those too! She loves her Cricket scrapbooking tool!) and so forth...fun fun fun!

This is our family watching...from left to right we have Aunt Hope, Meme & Papsy, Grandma and Grandpa (taking pictures of us!)

Third Year ~ Tenderfoot II!

2008-09-13T01:59:00.000-07:00

We had a "Getting To Know You" party for the girls in our group this year. We have mainly second graders and one first grader. I wanted an activity that would be completely fun, no structure. Meetings are a lot of structure so they need to chill together sometimes. You would be surprised, for some it was a struggle to play for 3 hours with no rules or guidelines...and I had tons of American Girl Dolls and accessories, a pluthera of dress-up clothes, a coloring table, and a Littlest Pet Shop village set up! Plus a movie playing in a second "quiet" room for girls who needed to wind down once it started getting late. I only served water and if they wanted to send snack foods I asked for "healthy" if they could, but of course I'm not going to turn away treats!!!!!! Having a table top water dispenser and small disposable cups available the girls drank tons. I discovered this at a party I threw at the end of the school year last year. With ice water and 3 oz. glasses stationed by a trash can the girls drank far more than I've ever seen them drink at parties where it's soda pop and their names are on cups. They think they want pop, but they are actually happier with water. And better behaved for me. *wink*

Here's my princess in one of her costumes, fully accessorized to the 9's! LOL

Here are some of the girls enjoying the Littlest Pet Shop village!

I do think this was the whole group tonight (I mean of the girls who came, this isn't the whole group I have!) ...they each had about a dozen wardrobe changes, it was fabulous! But some of the girls are outgrowing all the costumes so I'll stock up after Halloween is over. And I definitely need more fairy wings and feather boas, those were a hit.