Out of Africa

This is the display that greeted the boys on the first morning of our Africa study. We found so many great books to read. I'll list our favorites for you.

Little Man's favorite:

We love Jan Brett books and you just can't beat her web site for cool extras to go along with the books. Here is a video of her in Africa looking for the plants and animals to put in her book:

http://www.janbrettvideos.com/african_safairi_low_bandwidth.htm

Then we watched a different kind of safari: safari in a hot air balloon at the Newton's Apple science site.

Little Man also liked this book:

Apparently if you lose your tooth in Africa, you get your own live chicken! But not under your pillow. Cause that would be weird.

Mine and Z-Man's favorite:

Come With Me To Africa

It's the story of a photographer who dreamed of going to Africa as a child and finally made the trip. He's so positive and enthusiastic that you can't help feeling the same as you read it and his photos are wonderful. There's real-life adventure too: a sand storm, the vehicle nearly tipping over in the desert, climbing Kilamanjaro and standing guard for thieves. A great read with great photos!

This next one was an unexpected bonus, as we were studying the virtue of humility at the time:

And finally, sometimes the books your kids like are kind of surprising. I thought they might not care for this next book about a 30 year old English spinster who headed to Africa alone, always in a proper Victorian dress, (true story!) but they loved it.

Naturally, we had to study lots of African animals! I bought a big box filled with animal cards at a yard sale last year and that has been just invaluable.

We drew our own herd of animals and learned about creating depth in a drawing by putting objects in back of other objects. There are printable patterns for that project at Art Projects for Kids.

We read about some African children in our Children Just Like Me book, which the boys love and which has undoubtedly been one of my best purchases for this Around the World study.

And we read about David Livingstone and Samuel Morris in Hero Tales: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes, which has been another great asset.

I'll leave you with a Youtube video of a South African group called Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing Amazing Grace. Wow!