Program: American Girl Club

For our December installment of American Girl Club, we chose to focus on Rebecca. She is the only Jewish character so far, and her story takes place in 1914. We scheduled the program to coincide with Hanukkah, to add an extra layer to our presentation.

As usual with these programs, we began with a presentation about Rebecca and the times she lived in. We talked about World War I, silent movies, vaudeville, and immigration (particularly that of Russian Jews). We taught them about Hanukkah, and what a mitzvah is.

For our craft, we had the girls make dreidels, folded out of cardstock and with a pencil acting as the point to spin upon. After everyone had made their dreidels, we split into groups, passed out gelt and played! The girls loved it! They wanted to keep playing over and over again!

While we played dreidel, we showed the girls a couple of silent movie clips and they were fascinated. I love introducing them to things they hadn't thought of before. Seeing their reactions to the entertainment of the time is quite interesting.

As usual, I prepared a snack for them and this time, I made challah. It was my first ever time making challah from scratch and I was a little intimidated, but the girls raved about it. As a side note, I also made the best ever french toast casserole with the leftovers, so I think the challah was definitely a success.

The girls had a great time learning about Rebecca, and I love seeing what their favorite part of the program is (though, it's usually the food!).