Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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ladybugs
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Posted: Oct 24 2005 at 8:18am | IP Logged Quote ladybugs

MaryM wrote:
Jan Brett's fall booksigning tour for Honey... Honey... Lion is listed on her site. It starts tomorrow.


We went yesterday and she is fabulous with kids. Also, the illustrations of Honey, Honey....Lion are BEAUTIFUL!

God Bless,

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Posted: Oct 28 2005 at 9:30pm | IP Logged Quote MaryM

Something we have been doing along with our Africa interest is making paper animals that correspond to the animals we are seeing. We are using both origami from these books
Super Quick Origami Animals and Origami Animals and then printed paper animal models from this papercraft site. Kind of a fun addition to the study.

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Kelly
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Posted: Feb 03 2007 at 11:43pm | IP Logged Quote Kelly

Resurrecting this thread, I wanted to add a FABULOUS book for older, mature students (and adults) that we read for our ongoing Africa study. It's called "Left to Tell" by Immaculee Ilibagiza. A book not-unlike Corrie Ten Boom's "Hiding Place", it's about Immaculee's ordeal hiding out in a bathroom (with a bunch of other people, to boot) during the massacres in Rwanda a few years ago. She is a staunch Catholic and her faith shines thru in this incredible---tho sobering--- book. Neither of my teens could put it down.

This year we have been using LPH's "Geography of Africa" class as a spine for our Africa studies to keep us on track thru all those many countries. We have used many of Elizabeth's wonderful suggestions (go girl!) for the younger set's activities, and for the older children have added an extensive reading list. I don't have all my books here to itemize, but here are some of the other books we've added to the "living books on Africa" list:

Books for the Younger Set:
Adventures of Riley: Mission to Madagascar by A. Lumry
Adventures of Riley: Safari in South Africa - Lumry
*Hippos in the Night - East Africa -Cristina Allen
*In the Wilds of Africa - general wildlife - Halmi
*My Life with the Chimpanzees - Tanzania - J. Goodall
*On the Horn of Africa: Let's Travel to Somalia Together - Windham
*The Wooden Ox - Mozambique - Hardy
Safari Journal - Hudson Talbott (wrote similar one on Amazon, great little book) Kenya
Learning to Swim in Swaziland: A Child's Eye view of a Southern African Country - Leigh
*Elephant Tears: Mask of the Elephant - E. Africa - R.Trout
A Saint and his Lion: THe Story of Tekla of Ethiopia - Elaine Murray Stone
*The Ear, the Eye and the Arm - future in Zimbabwe - N. Farmer
*The Aye-Aye and I - Madagascar - Gerald Durrell

*chapter books for 4th grade and up


OLDER TEENS & ADULTS (and mind you, some of these have pretty mature themes):
Heart of Darkness - Congo - Conrad
Left to Tell - Rwanda - see above
The Covenant - S. Africa - Michener
Things Fall Apart - Nigeria - Achebe NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART- very brutal
Return to Laughter - W. AFrica - Elinore Smith Bowen
The White Nile - Alan Moorehead
The Monks of Tiburhaine - Algeria - mature readers
The Narrow Path: A Ghanaian David Copperfield - Selormey
St. Bakhita: From African Slave to Servant of the Good Master - Sudan - Ann Brown
God's Bits of Wood - Senegal - Ousmane
Cry, the Beloved Country - South AFrica - Paton
Forever Free- sequel to "Born Free"
African Tears: The Zimbabwe Land Invasions - Catherine Buckle - SOBERING
Gorillas in the Mist - Rwanda
Ponds of Kalambayi - Zaire - Tidwell
Chameleon Days - Ethiopia
A Street in Marrakech - Fernea
Green Hills of Africa - Hemingway
Snows of Kilimanjaro - Hemingway
From Cape to Cairo - Ewart Grogan (who happens to have been our parish priest's GREAT UNCLE! Small World!)
West with the Night - Kenya - Beryl Markham
The Number One Ladies Detective Agency - Botswana - McCall
Escape from Slavery - Sudan - Bok
The Lions of Tsavo - SCARY! - Patterson
Black Hawk Down - Somalia - Bowden VERY MATURE Reading
With Both Hands Waving: A Journey thru Mozambique - Fox

OTHER RESOURCES:
-Game: "Ten Days in Africa" ages 10 to Adult
-Wooden Africa Puzzle
-Barnes & Nobles "Africa Wild" Groovy Tube Book with game board/facts on African animals
-cd "Great Explorers of the World" with sections on Ibn Battuta, David Livingstone, Da Gama and Bartolome Dias-all of whom explored in and around Africa
-Richard Halliburton books - any sections on Africa (he has a lot of books-dated and OOP, but generally entertaining-my kids love these)

MOVIES (some serious, some silly):
Casablanca
A Far Off Place
The Mountains of the Moon **
all the old Tarzan movies
Endurance
Shaka Zulu (miniseries)
The Flame Trees of Thika (miniseries)
Born Free
Hatari
The Road to Zanzibar
The Road to Morocco
Hotel Rwanda *
Congo * (silly but slightly gruesome)
King Soloman's Mines
Allan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold
Ghosts of Rwanda documentary *
Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion
The Power of One *
Zulu
Kilimanjaro:To the Roof of the World
Jock of the Bushveld ("Old Yeller" in S. AFrica!)
Khartoum
The Lions of Tsavo documentary
Ghost and the Darkness* (gruesome, but good, only bigger people!)
The Gods Must be Crazy
The Wind and the Lion
Beau Geste
The Four Feathers
Out of Africa *

*denotes Mature movies

We are going to Africa for a month this spring so I am anxious to imbibe as much as we can on Africa before we go...and there will still be plenty more books to read and activities to do when we get back! I see now why there are "African Studies" majors out there!

As a funny aside, as I've been digging up resources over the past year, I had two interesting things happen. One, a note in a book from my mother, mentioning that she went to a tea back in the 80's and one of her friends (that Mom had known for YEARS)happened to mention, in passing, that she lived on the farm next to Isak Dinesen in Africa for many years. My mother was dumbfounded! The other funny thing we've stumbled on is that my son's riding teacher, who is as blondhaired and blue-eyed as they come, spoke nothing but Zulu until he was ten or so and still considers it his first language ("the only people I ever knew who spoke English were my mother and father") Isn't the world an interesting place????

Thanks again, Elizabeth and others, for organizing so much neat Africa stuff to launch us on our own African rabbit trail.

Kelly in FL










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Posted: Feb 04 2007 at 12:12am | IP Logged Quote Kelly

Ooops. I forgot to mention a few great African cds to add to the unit study:

anything by Ladysmith Black Mambazo (especially their "best of" series)
Power of One soundtrack
Out of Africa soundtrack
Endurance soundtrack
The Lion King soundtrack (well, it's catchy, anyway!)
cds by Cesaria Evora (from Cape Verde)

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MarilynW
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Posted: Feb 04 2007 at 7:20am | IP Logged Quote MarilynW

Kelly wrote:

*
We are going to Africa for a month this spring so I am anxious to imbibe as much as we can on Africa before we go...and there will still be plenty more books to read and activities to do when we get back! I see now why there are "African Studies" majors out there!

Kelly in FL



Kelly - I am green with envy!!! I lived in Africa years ago - it took me years to get Africa out of my system. Where are you going? Please record all your experiences. What a great opportunity for your children. The colors and sounds and smells are so unlike anywhere else - such a sensorial delight. One of my favorite memories is of dusk - gets dark about 6pm - and all these little fires in the huts in the hills and then the talking drums starting and the smell of the fires. And the incessant sound of cicadas and frogs and hyenas and other wildlife in the background. I still have notebooks written when I was a child describing all wonderful things around.



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julia s.
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Posted: Feb 04 2007 at 11:00am | IP Logged Quote julia s.

Kelly,
What a fantastic list! I think I might start thinking Africa next year. I hope you and your family have a great trip this spring.


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Kelly
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Posted: Feb 04 2007 at 11:04am | IP Logged Quote Kelly

I've never been to Africa, but as a child, I wanted to marry Daktari (the African vet of TV star fame...) does that give me an African heart? Truly, though, I always wanted to live in Africa, read every book about Africa I could get my hands on, then-by happenstance-- married a bloke who WORKS in Africa (and takes our children periodically to Africa with him) but this is my first chance to go, and I'm pretty excited, too. We're going to South Africa first. Then, because we have an African girl, a Namibian, who lives with us, we'll visit her family in Namibia next, then back to South AFrica. My dh is in Africa all the time, so this is "old hat" for him, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Kelly in FL

PS Where in South Africa were you all? Your description of the sights and sounds was delicious!
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Posted: Feb 05 2007 at 7:19pm | IP Logged Quote Nina Murphy

Did anyone mention the Riley books? OH, my kids so love the Riley Adventures by Amanda Lumry. There is an African Safari one...(and a website).

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Posted: Feb 05 2007 at 7:43pm | IP Logged Quote Kelly

Oh yeah, the Riley books are great. We just finished the Madagascar one-good fun---and have the South African one for next. I hope she cranks out some new ones, soon!

Kelly in FL
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Posted: Feb 05 2007 at 9:03pm | IP Logged Quote MarilynW

Kelly wrote:
I've never been to Africa, but as a child, I wanted to marry Daktari (the African vet of TV star fame...) does that give me an African heart? Truly, though, I always wanted to live in Africa, read every book about Africa I could get my hands on, then-by happenstance-- married a bloke who WORKS in Africa (and takes our children periodically to Africa with him) but this is my first chance to go, and I'm pretty excited, too. We're going to South Africa first. Then, because we have an African girl, a Namibian, who lives with us, we'll visit her family in Namibia next, then back to South AFrica. My dh is in Africa all the time, so this is "old hat" for him, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Kelly in FL

PS Where in South Africa were you all? Your description of the sights and sounds was delicious!




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Posted: Feb 05 2007 at 9:19pm | IP Logged Quote MaryM

And a movie that hasn't been mentioned, but I would highly recommend is Duma.

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Posted: Feb 07 2007 at 2:49pm | IP Logged Quote Kelly

Mary, that movie, "Duma", looks great. Thanks for the lead! I wonder if it is a movie takeoff on the picture book (that I somehow forgot to put on the list above) called "How it was with Dooms" by Xan Hopcraft. This is a great little book, a true story, about a family in Africa and their pet cheetah. Definite add on to the list. Will check out the movie!

Marilyn, my dh has always said how nice the Malawians are..."the warm heart of Africa". I would love to be able to see Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia and be off the beaten track a little more, but my dh is concerned about the malaria issues, especially with our younger children, so we're sticking to the non-malaria areas this time. Maybe next time!

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Posted: June 03 2007 at 12:52pm | IP Logged Quote Kelly

Well, we're back and we had a wonderful time. Beautiful vistas, beautiful people. Travellng with 8 children for a month, we never heard ONE ugly word, not one growl from ANYONE (unless you count the growls from the two huge lions that paced around our four tents one night from 11:00 to 5:00am, alternately purring and roaring, close enough to touch---if I'd dared to open the tent, which of course, would have been insane...---needless to say, Mommy didn't get much sleep that night...) It was truly an amazing time: from the first day in the countryside when my kids almost stepped on a Black Mamba (I still have a few nightmares over that), to haggling in the markets, to being charged by a rhino (in our van, no less), to being completely off the grid out in the bush and using kerosine lamps, to seeing my children's eyes pop out when tribal women strode by-clad only in bead aprons (!), to a sand storm in the Namib desert, to being surrounded in our open jeep by a herd of 45 VERY LARGE African elephants-close enough I could see their individual eyelashes, without binoculars (gulp), to meeting paleontologists and fondling Ediacaran fossils, to the to the beautiful voices and kind hearts of the Africans of all color and tribe. And yes, Marilyn, those incredibly QUICK sunsets and the night sounds (your ears must have been burning as I quoted your observations to my children! )! It was an incredible opportunity and I'm still pinching myself.

In our travels, I found a few more resources that I would enthusiastically add to The List for an African unit study. Here are a few:

Books:
"The Timbavati Patrol" by Peter Younghusband. Great living book about a fictional prep school in Kruger National Park.

"The Wilderness Family" by Kobie Kruger-growing up in the bush with lots of animals!

"Dead Reckoning" by Jeff Dawson-about the wreck of the "Dunedin Star" in 1942 off of Namibia's Skelaton Coast and the subsequent rescue attempts

"The Sheltering Desert" by Henno Martin about two men who escape into the Namib desert to avoid internment during WWII and their attmepts to live off that very harsh land

"Elephant Tears-Mask of the Elephant" by Richard Trout -teen kids who team up with Kikuyu teens to rescue elephants in East Africa

"Thunder Cave" by Roland Smith, similar theme as "Elephant Tears"

"Mystery Fish: Secrets of the Coelacanth" by Sally M. Walker-about the discovery of this paleo fish off of Comoros

"The Eye, the Ear and the Arm" -futuristic kids' detective team in Zimbabwe. A little wierd, but my kids really liked it.

"Missionary Travels in South Africa" (2 vols) by David Livingstone. Why read ABOUT him when you can read his own very entertaining account!

"African Triumph: the Life of Charles Lwanga ' by Charles Dollen. Inspiring life of this Ugandan saint and his friends.

"To the Heart of the Nile: Lady Florence Baker and the Exploration of Central Africa" by Pat Shipman. Amazing true story of a woman, sold into slavery during the Ottoman empire, her rescue by and subsequent marriage to an English man and their explorations of Africa. *Mature readers, but a great tale.

"Land of 1000 Hills" about an intrepid woman who starts an orphanage/school in Rwanda.

"The Cryptid Hunters" by Roland Smith -fictional account of kids who accompany their uncle to Africa in search of "living" dinosaurs.

Music:

"Zebra Crossing" by the Soweto String Quartet(or anything by these guys)
"African Voices" by Putamayo

More info to come!

Kelly (BACK) in Florida



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Posted: June 03 2007 at 4:36pm | IP Logged Quote MarilynW

Kelly wrote:
   And yes, Marilyn, those incredibly QUICK sunsets and the night sounds (your ears must have been burning as I quoted your observations to my children! )! It was an incredible opportunity and I'm still pinching myself.





Kelly - I am green with envy!!! Wow - you are bringing back so many memories. The lion outside the tent and the black mamba ones are those I have never forgotten!! How wonderful for your children to have such an experience. I have been telling my kids about some of my travels - but Africa seems so foreign to them - it is so hard to recreate for someone who has never been there.

I am looking forward to hearing more...

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Posted: June 03 2007 at 4:58pm | IP Logged Quote Leonie

What a fantastic trip, Kelly!

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Posted: June 03 2007 at 8:20pm | IP Logged Quote Kelly

oops...one more movie I forgot to "plug" was...

"Animals are People, Too" by the same guy who produced "The Gods Must Be Crazy" I and II. We all watched this movie twice and very much enjoyed it. Highly entertaining movie about the animals of the Kalahari Desert.

Marilyn, I can see why it's hard to recreate those African memories for your children. Here I am, a full-grown adult, widely read on the subject of Africa, married to an African businessman, years of working with Africans at the World Bank, and yet...I was unprepared for Africa. It was VERY different from what I expected, too!

Leonie, while we were in Namibia in a place called Sossusvlei, I met an Australian gal who says she knows you! She says she's met you, anyway. She and her dh were homeschooling their 8 year old while they travel. We were discussing homeschooling in Australia and I mentioned that there were Australians on my hsing education loop, and when I discribed you, she said she had met you at a pool, once. Her name is Suzanne, ds is Tavis, she's an ex-stewardess for Qantas. I can't remember her last name, unfortunately. Don't know if this rings any bells for you, but who knows, maybe you HAVE met! Actually, every place we went, we either ran into people we knew, or met people who knew people we knew. Even huge Africa can be a Small World, I guess.

Kelly in FL
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Posted: June 09 2007 at 4:20pm | IP Logged Quote ladybugs

Kelly,

Thank you for compiling this information for us and I'm so glad that you had such glorious experiences!

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