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What did you worry about when you were 9 years old?

We worried about natural disasters, friendships, popularity, and school.

Why don't you tell us a few things you worried about?

American Girl  is a renowned children's book series. The series is split up into many different sub-series. Each sub-series centers around a different girl from different eras in American History. We chose the sub-series about Kit Kittredge. The book we chose from her series was Meet Kit by Valerie Tripp which was book number 1.

"Kit Kittredge is a nine-year-old girl with a nose for news. But since most of the news is about the hard times of the Depression, Kit writes her own newspaper stories. She reports on the happenings at home—like the day Mother invites fussy Mrs. Howard and her son to stay with them. Kit is excited to have a boy her own age to play with, but Stirling causes Kit nothing but trouble. Then, when Dad loses his business because of the Depression, Mother gets a brainstorm that turns the Kittredge household upside down."
                                              ---http://www.americangirl.com/play/historical-character/kit/#page=stories

Kit wants to be a Journalist when she grows up. She loves to make newspapers on her trusty typewriter and give them to her dad when he comes home from work. Her mother's garden club friend Mrs. Howard and her young son, Sterling Howard, come to stay with the Kittredges. One day, Kit finds out that both her and Sterling love baseball so she runs to grab a newspaper article on their favorite player to show him. On her way back into Sterling's room, she opens the door hard on Mrs. Howard who was trying to serve Sterling tea. Mrs. Howard drops the tea tray, and Kit's mother's china is broken. Even though this was an accident, Kit's mother comes down hard on Kit, making her upset. She goes back to her room to write her dad's newspaper and makes the lead story about how it was not fair that Kit got scolded so badly for an accident. Her brother, Charlie, happens to see the newspaper before Dad gets home and tells Kit she should not bother their father with her newspaper today. When she asks why, Charlie tells her their father is about to lose his job. Which is something far more unfair than Kit's accident.

Earlier the book says, "About three years ago, people got nervous about their money and stopped buying as many things as they used to, so some stores had to close down. The people who worked in the stores lost their jobs. Then the factories that made the things the stores used to sell had to close down, so the factory workers lost their jobs too. Pretty soon the people who'd lost their jobs had no money to pay their doctors or house painters or music teachers, so those people got poorer too. Kit was glad that her dad still had his job at his car dealership. She and her best friend Ruthie knew kids at school whose fathers had lost their jobs. They'd seen those fathers selling apples on street corners, trying to earn a few cents a day. Dad said the Depression was like a slippery hole. Once you fell in, it was almost impossible to get out."

The book also has a section in the back where you can learn about things that really happened in the year 1934.

Check out this video about Kit and The Great Depression

This book follows along with SS5H5, “The student will explain how the Great Depression and New Deal affected the lives of millions of Americans.”

The activity that we would have the students do is create a classroom newspaper.

The students would have different jobs in creating the classroom newspaper.

These jobs are as follows:

1.       Reporters

2.       Artists

3.       Journalists

4.       Ad Writers

The Reporters article topics are as follows:

1.       soup kitchens during the great depression

2.       prices of merchandise

3.       President Roosevelt and the New Deal

4.       Stock Market Crash

5.       The Dust Bowl

6.       President Hoover

The Artists will get in pairs with the Reporters to draw pictures that go with the Reporters article topics.

The Journalists will put themselves back into the Great Depression.  They will create life stories about how people lived in the Great Depression. An example is like in the book, Kit’s Dad lost his job.  The Journalists could talk about the effects of that in their day to day life. 

The Ad Writers will create ads about things people were selling during the Great Depression.  An example from the book is people selling apples on the street for 5 cents.

We think this would be an excellent book series for the students in the classroom.  The students would enjoy these books very much.  They are fun, entertaining, and knowledgeable.  They turn hard historical facts into a fun and engaging book.

What would you do if you were living in the Great Depression?