Slices of Life

My family brings me so much joy.  I make it a goal each year to make as many wonderful family memories as we can. My boys are at that wonderful age where they are pretty self sufficient but I know that their time at home with us is fleeting.  We have so much fun together but I can already see just a few years ahead where they'll be off and on their own more and more.  I know these family days are numbered and I try to enjoy them as much as I can. So here are my 10 favorite pictures of the year: It is pretty rare that I manage to get a photo with Ian in it at all now that he'd rather hide from the camera but every now and then I manage to snap a photo that captures how much he's changing and growing. I'm not ashamed to say I bribed my boys into taking this photo at our trip to Hershey.  I had a very similar photo I snapped on our trip there years and years ago when they were all tiny.  We actually rode this ride a second time w...

As part of our Africa unit we've been trying authentic African foods, trying our hand at African themed crafts, and reading books about Africa ( check out our list of 55 books here ). We've also watched a few movies about Africa.  There were so many great movies to choose from that we had a hard time picking which ones to watch!  Here are 15 of our favorites. It should be noted that not all films were appropriate for all of my boys that's why we have a mix of younger and older movies to appeal to a wider range of viewers. 1. The Air Up There 2. The Lion King Movies 3. Disney Nature African Cats 4. Blended 5.  Families of Ghana / Kenya/ Egypt 6.   Mighty Joe Young 7. The Wild 8.  Gorillas in the Mist 9.  Born Free/ Living Free 10.  Sahara 11. Queen of Katwe 12.   Madagascar 13. Adventures in Zambezia 14. Island of Lemurs 15.  Duma You might also wa...

My boys asked if we could learn some more about Africa.  We have already studied Madagascar, Ghana, and ancient Egypt through our years of homeschooling. They know so much about the African animals and climate too, but I figured we could still have fun learning even more! We picked out a bunch of books to read together; trying to find books about the various regions of Africa. We were hoping to read about two or three books about each of the 54 nations but that is proving quite difficult! Here are 55 children's books we have found about Africa. Each day we try to study a new nation by reading the books we have picked out, finding the country on our world map and coloring them in on our printable, and then perhaps watching a movie about that region or cooking up a fun new recipe. The books we are using: Africa is Not a Country  Deep in the Sahara (Mauritania) Morocco Amazing Pictures and Facts about Algeria We Visit Libya We're saili...