Slices of Life

I found some really great books to read this month!  My two absolute favorites were Lilac Girls and Before We Were Yours; these haunting historical fiction novels were absolutely riveting.  I did toss in some lighter reads to cheer me up and tried a totally new to me Author in Fredrik Backman's books.  Truly I'd recommend any of these books as I did enjoy them all. 1.  A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman -  I LOVED this book so much.  This books takes us through the daily life of a disgruntled older man named Ove.  Through flashbacks you see what his life was like growing up and watch him make new relationships with his neighbors in the present day.  A quiet man, he often did a lot behind the scenes that no one knew about. A very touching story. 2.  The Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly-   Set during World War II this book was amazing.  Seriously AMAZING!  Three young women; a polish girl who ends up in a Nazi work camp, the ...

We've been struggling to find new and exciting field trip ideas this year.  We've been homeschooling for 4 years now and with weekly/ daily field trips for the first few years we have found ourselves getting bored with visiting the same places over and over again. I was so excited when I realized that we could easily spend a day visiting Salem Massachusettes and learning all about the Salem witch trials. Before heading out for our trip we read: What Were the Salem Witch Trials? You Wouldn't Want to be A Salem Witch Once we had a good idea about what the Salem witch trials entailed we picked a day with nice fall weather and headed out to explore the town. The Salem Witch trials took place in colonial Massachusetts in the year 1692.  Mass hysteria found many town folk accused of witchcraft and held as prisoners awaiting trial.  During the trials 19 witches were convicted and hanged, 1 man was crushed to death, and 5 others (including infants) died in prison. I had not been ...

We had another busy week and with three straight days of pouring rain it felt dreary and I had to force myself out of the house.  Of course once we were out and about we were glad to have left the house.  We started our first week of our new co-op and we had a great time trying out all sorts of wonderful Halloween themed activities with our friends. We had an unexpected day at home on Friday.   We were supposed to meet up with friends to go hiking but we had to postpone our hike.  The boys all worked on a bit of schoolwork; knocking out a few more pages in their grammar books and math books.  They enjoyed a bit of time to read and we read two more books together about the civil rights movement.  After lunch Ian headed off to work with this grandfather and the younger two boys and I went for a little walk.  It was a beautiful fall day and we wanted some fresh air. The boys all worked pretty hard on Saturday .  Ian went to work with his grandfather...