African Folktales and Music

     This is our last week that we will spend in the continent of Africa.  It has been wonderful to explore this rich and diverse land with the children.  This week our theme was African folktales and music.   

     During inside free play, I had an art invitation out for the children to do if they wanted to.  I had paper, gel crayons (which are such wonderful sensory experience), markers and colored pencils out for them to draw with.  I also put out glue, googly eyes, sequins and buttons.  I told the children to create a picture that told their own story.  Most of the children took the opportunity to create some wonderful art.

     For circle time on Monday and Tuesday I told the children a traditional Zulu story called “The King of the Birds” that I found on this website, http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/africa7.html.  The story talks about 4 African birds, the Fish Eagle, the Eagle Owl, the Kori Bustard and the Neddicky. I printed pictures of the birds so that the children could visualize them while I told the story.  It is one of those wonderful trickster tales that also explains why the owl only hunts at night and the neddicky lives in the forest.  We also watched an animated video of an Anansi story called, “Anansi and the Pot of Beans.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sau3E2LEfcI  I love Anansi stories and during our snack time this week I read the children four other Anansi stories: Anansi and the Party, Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock, and  Anansi and the Magic Stick, all by Eric Kimmel.  A Story, A Story by Gail E. Haley, is a story about Anansi, the spider man, and how, when there were no stories in the world, Anansi obtained them from the Sky God.  The littles were entranced by the Anansi stories!

      Our first art time project was making paper plate birds.  (As an aside, when I can, I love to recycle things to use in our art projects.  My niece gave me a lot of empty baby formula cans which we used to make our Ndebele huts.  The plastic lids make great palettes for paint!)  To paint the birds I gave the children squirts of bright green, pink, orange, blue and purple paint.  They each had a paper plate that I had previously folded in half and then unfolded so that the plate lay flat.  After the children finished painting I gave them an assortment of feathers to glue on their plates.  Then I refolded plates  in half and stapled a triangle of orange construction paper at one end.  At the other end I stapled on strips of paper to make the bird’s tail feathers.  My original plan was to have the children cut out their own strips of paper, but we were running short on time!  

     For our second art project I made each child a spider out of pipe cleaners.  They are so simple to make.  You need four pipe cleaners.  Fold them in half.  Twist the top several times to form the head and spread out the legs.  I gave each child a container of pony beads and they threaded the beads onto the spider’s legs.  This is a great small motor activity.  I thought that they would only only want to put 5 or 6 beads on each spider leg, but no!  They loved this.  Each spider leg was covered in pony beads!  Finally I had cut triangles out of paper plates and had taped a long piece of yarn to the back of the plate.  Then the children created a spider web by wrapping yarn around the plate.  

  

     On Wednesday and Thursday we talked about African music.  I found a great website, the Magical Movement Company,  that gave me some wonderful ideas about how to engage the children in dance.  http://magicalmovementcompany.blogspot.com/2015/06/musical-story-for-preschoolers-to-enjoy.html  I bought the album, Master Drummers of Africa, for the children to listen and dance to. And so for circle time, we danced a story about going down to the river to get water in order cook our yams and beans.  It was great fun and the children were so enthusiastic and graceful in their movement.  I have started playing music specific to the country that we are studying  during art time.  In an article by Chris Boyd Brewer “Music and Learning: Integrating Music in the Classroom”, he states that “Music will activate students mentally, physically, and emotionally and create learning states which enhance understanding of learning material...Music stabilizes mental, physical and emotional rhythms to attain a state of deep concentration and focus in which large amounts of content information can be processed and learned...Music is the doorway to the inner realms and the use of music during creative and reflective times facilitates personal expression in writing art movement and a multitude of projects.”  

     For our first art project the children painted Djembe drums that I made out of paper cups.  To make these I cut holes in the bottoms of 20 oz paper cups and a 16 oz paper cup.  Then using a glue gun, I glued the bottoms together.  

Then I made a papier mache paste using a recipe that I really like from Jean Van’t Hul’s book The Artful Parent.  To make the paste you whisk together 1 cup of flour, 2 cups of water, 3 Tbsp of salt and 1/2 cup of white school glue.  Cut strips of newspaper and dip the strips into the paste.  Cover the cups with one layer of newspaper strips.  Allow to dry overnight.  

When the children first arrived at school, I had them paint the drums brown.  These dried during their free play time.  During art time, I put a squirt of gold, silver and white liquid watercolor paint onto paint palettes and I let them paint away!  They did a wonderful job decorating their drums.  I cut the ends off of large balloons and stretched those over the tops of the 20 oz cups and secured it with a rubber band to make the top of the drum.  My inspiration for this project came from this website:  http://artsmarts4kids.blogspot.com/2008/10/create-your-own-african-djembe-drum.html  

     For our second art project, we made musical shakers.  My inspiration for this project came from this website:  http://www.kidspot.com.au/make-a-shaker/  I had the children squirt squiggles of orange, purple, pink and green tempera paint onto cookie sheets.  then we rolled either paper towel or toilet paper tubes in the paint to make wonderful rainbow swirls of paint on the tubes.  Having a blowdryer handy is a great way to speed up the drying process!  I stapled one end of the tube and put dried kidney beans inside and then stapled the other end.  

     This was an especially messy art project because after they rolled the tubes they also wanted to smoosh their hands around in the paint.  The tactile temptation was too strong to resist! 

     I always try to end or begin our school with outdoor play.  I find it an alarming trend that today's children have become so removed from the natural world.  In the book The Green Hour by Todd Christopher, he says, "Children have increasingly withdrawn from the fundamental and formative experiences of nature in their own neighborhoods, leading lives more sedentary, more structured, and more saturated by media than their parents, as children, did.  Not coincidentally, the rates of childhood obesity have risen dramatically, attention-deficit and emotional disorders have been diagnosed with alarming frequency, and the virtual world presented on a screen has become more meaningful to young people than the natural world right outside their doors"  I do not run a preschool for the pristine.  I have told the parents of my preschoolers they should not put their children in clothes that they don't want to see possibly ruined.  I believe in messy play.  

     One of my favorite muffin recipes is this bran muffin, partly because it makes a lot so I can make it once and use it for a couple of weeks!  But also because they taste really good.  This recipe is from The Food Nanny Rescues Dinner

Six-Week Bran Muffins

Combine in a large bowl:

5 cups whole wheat flour

5 tsps. baking soda

2 tsps salt

2 tsps ground cinnamon

6 cups Raisin Bran or Bran flakes cereal

In another bowl blend together:

3 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup canola oil

1 quart buttermilk

2 tsps vanilla extract

Pour the egg mixture into the cereal mixture and mix well.  Transfer the batter to a large plastic container with a tight fitting lid.  When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375° and generously grease the muffin tin.  Do not stir the batter before filling the muffin cups about 2/3 full.  Bake until the tops spring back when touched, about 20 minutes.

     

The African Continent

     This month we have been learning about the African Continent in our Preschool.  It has been a wonderful journey as we have learned about the unique peoples, cultures, flora and fauna found in Africa.  This week we are focusing on the Sahara desert--the biggest hot desert in the world!  It is a land of shifting sand dunes, soaring temperatures, venomous reptiles and some of the cutest mammals around!
     The beginning of each preschool day starts with free time.  I love to watch the imaginative play that goes on.  I always have an optional activity for the children to explore.  Today we made sand slime.  The boys thought that it was wonderful and had a lovely time playing with the gooey stuff.  The girls...not so much!  The recipe for today's slime is a easy-peasy!  Simply mix together 1/2 cup of glue with 1/2 cup of water in a bowl.  Stir until the glue is completely dissolved.  Then stir in whatever add-in you want.  Today we stirred in sand that I bought from Hobby Lobby.  But you could stir in glitter, pumpkin seeds, small plastic figures, etc.  In another bowl pour in 1/2 cup of liquid starch.  Stir the glue mixture into the starch and stir.  This will start to coagulate into a gooey mass.  I just get in there with my hands to do the final mixing!

     Two great books that I found to use for circle time are, This Is The Oasis by Miriam Moss and Dorling Kindersley's 24 Hour Desert.  I also made a concentration matching game using pictures and information that I found the Conservation Institute website titled "10 Incredibly Adaptive Saharan Animals http://www.conservationinstitute.org/10-incredibly-adaptive-sahara-desert-animals/

As usual, the concentration game was a great success.  The children love to play this kind of game!  As each animal match was found, we would stop and I would tell the children about that animal.  

     For our first art project I showed the children pictures of desert sunsets and we discussed the colors that we saw.  Then I gave the children sand paper to tear to form the land.  And red, yellow, orange and purple construction paper to tear to create the sunset.  They glued these onto white paper and then stenciled a camel over top using black paint.  

    For our second art project we threaded pony beads onto pipe cleaners to make snakes.  We glued googly eyes onto the snake heads.  

    The two books that we read during our snack time were Verdi by Janeil Cannon and Mukhtar and the Camels by Janet Graber. 

     During music time this month we have been learning "Kumbayah".  We have had a lot of fun exploring music with "boom whackers" which are percussion tubes that you can whack on yourself to produce sound.  They are a lot of fun!

                                                         

     Today we celebrated Avery's birthday.  She got her birthday gnome and funfetti cupcakes.  My favorite yellow cake recipe is from Pie In The Sky by Susan G Purdy.  It is a great book for high altitude baking.  Since I live at almost 6000 feet baking can be tricky.  This is a great recipe and can be easily adapted for different flavors.  

High Altitude Classic Yellow Cake

3 cups plus 1 Tbsp. sifted all-purpose flour  (at 7,000 feet add 3 Tbsp. At sea level 3 cups)*

2 tsp. baking powder (1 Tbsp. at sea level)

¾ tsp. salt (1/2 tsp. at sea level)

½ pound (2 sticks) butter

2 cups minus 1 Tbsp. sugar (at 7,000 feet minus 2 Tbsp. At sea level 2 cups)

5 large eggs (at sea level, 4 eggs)

2 tsp. vanilla extract (at sea level, 1 tsp.)*

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. buttermilk (at 7,000 feet 1 ¼ cups. At sea level 1 cup WHOLE milk)

Pre-heat oven to 375º (at sea level 350º).  In a medium bowl, whisk together the sifted flour, baking powder and salt. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until well blended. Scrape down the bowl.  Beat in the eggs 2 or 3 at a time, along with the vanilla beating well to blend, then scrape down the bowl and mix again.  Don’t worry if the batter looks curdled, the flour will bring it together.  

With the mixer on the lowest speed on lowest speed, slowly add the dry ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk or milk.  Once the batter is blended together, increase the speed and beat for about a minute, until smooth and creamy.

Grease and flour 2 9-inch round pans or a 9x13 inch sheet cake pan, or 18-24 cupcakes.  Bake for 22-28 minutes for the round pans or cupcakes; or 30-32 minutes for the sheet cake pan or until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean and top springs back when lightly touched.  

*Use any flavoring that you like--almond, hazelnut and coconut are among my favorites.