Jump to content
Home
Forum
Articles
About Us
Tapestry

Story Books Set In Africa


 Share

Recommended Posts

Hi all,

 

Our arts week theme this year is Africa! I have been asked to find a book for my reception class to act out that is set in Africa! I'm really struggling with this. We have already done Africa as a theme due to one of my children going on holiday there! So I've used Handa's Surprise and Hen!

 

Has anybody got any suggestions my brain is feeling a bit fuzzy after 3 days in bed with throat infection :o .

 

Any suggestions much appreciated!

 

Q xx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi

 

we (foundation stage in primary school) are having our yearly international week next week and this years theme is Africa. We are using The Greedy Zebra as our theme for the week. It's an african folk tale story about creation about how the zebra got his stripes. Basically when God made the world all the animals were born plain. God put all the colours, textures and patterns in a cave and the animals took turns to choose their own colours and patterns. Zebra put his stomach first and carried on eating living up to his reputation as greedy.When zebra got there only black was left so zebra put it on suddenly with his excess weight the black ripped living him with the striped black rips with white showing through. The wonderful pictures are by an African artist with a native feel.

We are using this book as the basis of the whole week. We are having a drama/music day-music movement, fabric lengths to re-create the story with 90 children in the hall including a visit by a singer whose going to teach us a native song, an imaginative writing day creating our own animals, a KUW day using non-fiction references to make animal fact cards and covering animals camoflage, African craft day including a drumming workshop and finally a maths day based on spots and stripes which is also non uniform/dress up day. Role plays areas are n african hut and rainforest. Using Mama Mirabelle and Tizzy for ICT.

 

Loads more going on through out school ending with a sharing assembly with parents next Friday. I have used this book before successfully for drama and movement and recommended it.

 

 

greddy zebra

 

I exhausted already just talking about what we are doing :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

'Not so fast Songololo' I did it for the april book review competition. Not sure how good it would be but the little boys buys new 'tackies' and of course pays with 'rands' - might be able to do something with it??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really fab suggestions, but during my child initiated African theme, i forgot to mention we too did The Greedy Zebra, we focused on dance and drama...

 

But thank you anyway!

I wish i had been told that this was to be our theme and I wouldn't have persued it in Term 3!

x

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's also Hot hippo and another called baby baboon alongside Greedy Zebra. All by Mwenye Hadithi. Bringing the rain to kapiti plain is another old favourite.

Cx

 

Ohhh but just typed Mwenye Hadithi into amazon and there are loads!

 

May have hit something:)

 

Many Thanks

Qx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest lou73

What about the Lion who loved......its a lovely story about a friendly lion who does not want to eat other animals, so his mum makes him leave the pride. However it all turns out well in the end when she realises that its ok to be different! AHHHHH

 

 

The following web link has some great african ideas.....stories and craft activities. The african thumb piano is great and can be used on the interactive whiteboard.

http://pbskids.org/africa/

 

If you also go to the TES website and look in resources i uploaded a powerpoint diary i made for barnaby bear when he travelled to africa you might find that useful as well, which i used with a nursery class.

Edited by lou73
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a lovely book called "We All Went on Safari, A counting Journey Through Tanzania". The Maasai children in the story see a group of animals on each page and each group is one bigger, so one on first page, two one next, etc. The book tells us the Swahili word for each number and uses Swahili names on each page as well. It has a small section at the back with some more words in Swahili and facts about the Maasai people.

 

It is one of the best resources I have ever had and the children really love it. I cannot recommend it enough.

 

It is published by Barefoot Books

 

http://www.barefoot-books.com/uk/site/page...ne.php?pid=1127

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Top of my list would be Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain. It is a story based on an African folk tale. The illustrations are fabulous, the language is simple but very expressive, and also cumulative, like This is the House that Jack Built. A good text for CLL. It lends itself to music and drama and the theme of arid plains, hungry animals and the need for rain makes a change from lush African jungle themes.

Stories about Anansi the spider are quite amusing as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One Child, One Seed - Kathryn Cave,

a story book and a counting book, it has beautiful photographs and some lovely 'snippets' of information. It's in 'association with Oxfam', and i've just realised i bought this in Ireland, but i'm sure you can get it here also.

Karrie

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hee he! How funny, I've decided to do Lazy Lion! It was on the list from my Amazon search for Mwenye Hadithi that Catma recommended and I found it in the library!

Also, Lou73 thank you - your powerpoint is brilliant!

 

Thank you for all of your suggestions. Wish my class luck with spending tomorrow morning adapting it into a drama performance for a whole school performance at 2pm! This is what we are kicking arts week off with...each class is adapting the teacher's choice of African story. My Head would like to see the progression through the school after one morning spent on the chosen texts...I'm just going to try and make it as fun as possible! (I wonder if we will get time to construct the bedouin tent hee?!)

 

Qx

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. (Privacy Policy)