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Africa And All That


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Hi,

 

Every year our school devotes a whole week to some kind of 'excellence and enjoyment' curriculum type thing!?

 

In the past we've done, Creative Arts Week and Literacy Week. We throw the whole timetable out across the whole school (2form entry plus a nursery) and plan the whole week together so that all the children get to work collaboratively... it's quite a task to organise, but the outcome is always stupendous! :D

 

anyhow, to cut a long story short, this year we're doing a Multicultural week, and the FS have decided to base their week around Africa.

 

Does anyone have any ideas, know any good visitors, websites etc that we could pursue? We need to get them all down on paper to apply for funding for this as we also have 33 student teachers that week too!

 

Any suggestions would be lovingly accepted thanks

 

~ Porl

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Hi Paul

Handa's Surprise is a good story to do - you can download masks and pics from this French site:

here

I think The Awongalema Tree (from Kaye Umansky's 3 singing pigs) is an African story. I've done that with Reception too.

Last year we made lovely batik pictures, using flour and water paste instead of wax. Great fun and very effective.

Clay thumb pots is another possibility - I am interested in trying these with the recipe for sawdust clay that you can find here

 

I'm sure others will have loads of ideas. Sounds like a great topic -ENJOY!!

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There is a series of picture books written by Ifeoma Onyefulu (published by Frances Lincoln) using photos.

A is for Africa - alphabet book

Emeka's Gift - counting story

Ebele's Favourite - African games

Chidi only likes blue - a book of colours.

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Last year our school had an Africa week, among the things we did was to have people in to do Batik/Tie-die, African Drums (very expensive and the person who was supposed to turn up couldn't and her replacement was even more expensive but a fantastic opportunity to look at and play african instruments), a potter to make african masks with KS2 children, we made african masks out of cardboard templates with lots of animal print paper, paint and coloured collage materials (looked fantastic), making african animals from junk modelling, animal templates, african cooking, collage etc etc.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

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The BBC Let's Move dance programme has one unit called The Greedy Zebra. It is fabulous - real African music, a narrator who is African and a great story. Highly recommended. We build a cave in our role play area and put in animal print fabrics when we do this unit.

We compare houses with how we live and discover that not all houses in Africa are mud huts!!! Having said that, we make mud huts using clay. We make Ndebele patterns. We cook African food (plantain, mealie meal, butternut soup etc.). Find different food, fruit, veg, that originates in a part of Africa. Display a large African map and ask the children to find something out about any part of Africa at home (parents can help in the search) and they can stick it onto the map.

Various stories are good to use - Niki Daly has several. A favourite of mine is "Not so fast Songololo" (which has another title in the UK). Good to have a variety showing both rural and urban life.

We listen to music from different parts of Africa and make up dances. We learn African songs for assembly.

The important things to avoid are the assumptions that

* all of Africa is poor and starving

* everyone in Africa is the same colour (remember Egypt!)

* everyone lives in round mud huts

* all of Africa is the same (remembering that Africa is a continent and not a country - each tribe and country has unique languages, customs, clothing, music, food...)

* wild animals are roaming the streets freely!

* people are half naked

 

My husband runs "African Connections" - he is a genuine South African, Xhosa speaking - and goes into schools to do workshops and talks about South Africa. He has a slide show on homes and houses in South Africa, tells stories, sings songs in Xhosa and gets the children joining in. He also brings in artefacts. I always have him into my Reception class and the children love him! He makes a charge as this is his business and I am sure he would give a good deal! We live in Essex so I'm not sure how viable it would be. One way of funding is to ask the parents to pay - tell them that you would love to take the class to Africa, but it would be too expensive so we'll bring Africa to us - much cheaper!

Hope that is of some help.

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Wow... fast replies guys... thanks.

 

Um, HeyJude... what sort of prices are we talkig with your husband?... and/or does he know anyone who does something similar further up in t'North? :)

 

~ Porl

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  • 2 years later...

I'm not sure if you will see this reply or not now... but i was searching africa and your post came up.

I am about to begin a topic on Africa, and the ideas of your visiting husband sounds great!

I was wondering how much he charged and would he travel to Suffolk (bury st edmunds?)

hope you get this.

thank roxanne

 

not sure if it would be easier to email me...

 

 

The BBC Let's Move dance programme has one unit called The Greedy Zebra. It is fabulous - real African music, a narrator who is African and a great story. Highly recommended. We build a cave in our role play area and put in animal print fabrics when we do this unit.

We compare houses with how we live and discover that not all houses in Africa are mud huts!!! Having said that, we make mud huts using clay. We make Ndebele patterns. We cook African food (plantain, mealie meal, butternut soup etc.). Find different food, fruit, veg, that originates in a part of Africa. Display a large African map and ask the children to find something out about any part of Africa at home (parents can help in the search) and they can stick it onto the map.

Various stories are good to use - Niki Daly has several. A favourite of mine is "Not so fast Songololo" (which has another title in the UK). Good to have a variety showing both rural and urban life.

We listen to music from different parts of Africa and make up dances. We learn African songs for assembly.

The important things to avoid are the assumptions that

* all of Africa is poor and starving

* everyone in Africa is the same colour (remember Egypt!)

* everyone lives in round mud huts

* all of Africa is the same (remembering that Africa is a continent and not a country - each tribe and country has unique languages, customs, clothing, music, food...)

* wild animals are roaming the streets freely!

* people are half naked

 

My husband runs "African Connections" - he is a genuine South African, Xhosa speaking - and goes into schools to do workshops and talks about South Africa. He has a slide show on homes and houses in South Africa, tells stories, sings songs in Xhosa and gets the children joining in. He also brings in artefacts. I always have him into my Reception class and the children love him! He makes a charge as this is his business and I am sure he would give a good deal! We live in Essex so I'm not sure how viable it would be. One way of funding is to ask the parents to pay - tell them that you would love to take the class to Africa, but it would be too expensive so we'll bring Africa to us - much cheaper!

Hope that is of some help.

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