Africa Reading List

A is for Africa (Onyefulu)
Journey Into Africa (Knight)
Look What Came from Africa (Harvey)
Elizabeti's Doll (Bodeen)*-Tanzania
Beatrice's Goat (McBrier)- Uganda
Wangari's Trees of Peace (Winter)- Kenya
I Lost my Tooth in Africa (Diakite)- Mali
We All Went on Safari(Krebs)* Tanzania
Bringing The Rain to Kapiti Plain* (Aardema)-African Plains
For You are a Kenyan Child (Cunnane)-Kenya
Pretty Salma (Daly)-South Africa
Galimoto (Williams)
Jambo Means Hello(Feelings)
Africa is not a Country (Knight)
My Painted House,My friendly Chicken and Me (Angelou)
Kente Colors (Chocolate)
Water Hole Waiting (Kurtz)
African Rhinos (
Masai and I (Kroll)
Honey Honey Lion (Brett)
African Animals (Squire)
African Elephants (Eckart)
Giraffes (Lepthien)
Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters (Steptoe)
The Day Gogo Went to Vote (Sisulu)

Geography- The Middle East

As a supplement to our Classical Conversations studies, I decided to start a more in-depth World Geography study with N. Our first "stop" is the Middle East. This is not an organize unit study but more of a pulling of resources from different sources and reading them as we are able.

So far, this is what we have read:

The King and the Three Thieves (A Persian Tale)- Balouch
The Librarian of Basra (A True Story from Iraq- Winter
Silly Chicken (Pakistan)- Kahn
Tunjur! Tunjur!(A Palestinian Folktale)- (McDonald)
Lugalbanda, the Boy who Got Caught Up in a War (Ancient Iraq)- Henderson

Ancient Greece Reading

We are doing Classical Conversations Cycle 1 this year.This cycle covers Ancient History. As a complement we have been reading some picture books on Ancient Greece and Greek mythology. A. is following along as far as his Challenge A schedule allows him. I am going to compile here the books we have read on this topic:

(N)(A)King Midas and the Golden Touch (Craft)
(N)Cupid and Psyche (Craft)
(N)The Librarian who Measured the Earth (Lasky)
(N)Wise Guy:The Life and Philosophy of Socrates (Usher)
(N)Persephone (Clayton)
(N)(A)Pegasus (Mayer)
(N)The section on Greece from the Usborne book of World History

October Reading

We have continued with our reading about the Civil War. This is going to be the last of the Civil War books since Nicolas informed me, "Mom, I am tired of reading about war". And frankly, I am tired too.

This is the final Civil War books for both A. and N. :

(N)Just a Few Words Mr. Lincoln (Fritz)
(N)Journey to Freedom (Wright)
(A)Civil War Spy (Van Lew)
(A)The Visual Dictionary of the Civil War (Eyewitness)
(Me)Soldier's Heart
(N)Billy and the Rebel (Ready to Read series)
(N)A Picture of Robert E. Lee (Adler)
(Me)Stonewall (Fritz)

Non Civil War books read in October so far:

(N)St. Francis of Assisi (Kennedy)
(A)Train to Somewhere (Bunting)-orphan trains
(A)Ancient Egypt (Langley)

American History Through Picture Books

N. and I have been reading our way through American History via picture books. Rather than listing them on the side bars, I am just going to jot down here the ones we have read. I haven't been good at keeping up a list so if I remember some more I'll come back and edit this post. We are now up to the Civil War.

Here is the list:

Settling of the West, Frontier and Pioneer Life:

Dandelions (Bunting)
Wagons West (Farrar)
Cassie's Journey (Brett)
Dakota Dougout (Turner)
A Fourth of July in the Plains (Turner)
Grandma's Essie's Covered Wagon (Williams)

Civil War

Abraham Lincoln (Venezia)
A Picture Book of Harriet Tubman (Adler)
A Picture Book of Abraham Lincoln (Adler)
Freedom River (Rappaport)
When Harriet Met Sourjourner (Clinton)
Wagon Train (Kalman)
Almost to Freedom (Nelson)
The Gettysburg Address (Ill. by McCurdy)
Ghost of the Civil War (Harness)
Daily Life on Southern Plantation (Erickson)
Duel of the Ironclads (O'Brien)
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine (Walker)
The Last Brother (Noble)
Abe Lincoln Remembers (Turner)
Follow the Drinking Gourd (winter)
The Blue and the Gray (Bunting)
Frederick Douglas and the Last Day of Slavery (Miller)
Barefoot: Escape on the Underground Railroad
Ox Cart Man (Hall)
Birdie's Lighthouse (Hopkinson)
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt (Hopkinson)
Now Let me Fly (Johnson)
The Wagon (Johnston)
The Bobbin Girl (McCully)
Popcorn at the Palace (McCully)
The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter (Olson)
Pink and Say (Polacco)
Journey to Freedom (Wright)


I know there are a bunch more we read about the Westward Expansion. I just have to find the titles so I can keep a list all in one place.

Advent and Christmas

It has been a while since I wrote about our school. I could try to recap what we have been up to but it will take to long. I so wish I could get on a good writing schedule! There are so many questions, ideas, comments, reflections, flying around in my head. I wish I could get them out. But the truth is that at this time in my life, I can't sit down and write. It takes too much time and effort. Maybe some day...

For now, I would limit myself to jotting down what we have been doing so I can have a record. Our advent has been good, I think.

- We decorated our mantel and our tree for advent on time.
- Prayer time in the morning has consisted on meditations on an Advent book for children by Julie Walters. After the prayers and meditations are finished, we have been reading some Christmas stories from a book I picked up at Half Price Books last year: A Newberry Christmas. It is a compilation of Christmas stories by some Newberry award winners. Some are better that others but overall they have been enjoyable.
- We observed the Immaculate Conception feast day by going to mass and attending the mission at our church.
- We celebrated St. Juan Diego's feast day with churros and watching the video from CCC.
- We celebrated Our Lady of Guadalupe's feast day by reading the story of the apparition and watching some videos on Youtube about the mysteries surrounding the tilma. Then we went to a party to a friend of ours (not related to the feast day at all)
- We have made plastic shrink ornaments ( I actually got those last year for Paidea Classics- an Easter Orthodox site). These were fun to make.

As Christmas approaches, the challenge is to keep the spirit alive. It is a lot easier to do these things within the context of our school. Once school is out, the kids want a break too. It is rather hard to keep a sensible routine going especially when my mind keeps going to all the things I still have to do. This year it will be especially hard because we are not going to be home for Christmas. It will be heard to keep our family prayer time going as well as the reading of stories. Thankfully for us Catholics, Christmas does not end on December 25th. So we will still have the chance to do some more reading and listening after we come back.

N's Narration for Bible History