This week, the children began a study of African folktales, which will include many of the “Anansi” stories. These stories are the focus of Pre-K’s second Core Work. The children were introduced to African folktales and the mythical explanation of how the spider Anansi brought stories to the earth. The children located Africa on a globe and learned about the many landforms that exist there, such as rainforests, grasslands, deserts and plains, as well as some of the animals living in each African habitat. There are many “Anansi” stories in which Anansi is portrayed either as a spider or as a man. Anansi is a trickster, who often finds himself in trouble, but he usually triumphs over larger foes. After hearing Anansi, the Spider, as retold by Gerald McDermott, the children voted on which one of Anansi’s six gifted sons deserved the prize for saving his father from danger. They drew pictures of the spiders they had voted for and the illustrations were used for a bar graph.
We also introduced the children to the Swahili language, as they learned how to count from one to ten in Swahili. We All Went On Safari - A Counting Journey Through Tanzania, by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns, took the children on a beautifully illustrated safari through the grasslands of Tanzania, a large country in Eastern Africa. Then, the children made their own Swahili counting books.
We also introduced the children to the Swahili language, as they learned how to count from one to ten in Swahili. We All Went On Safari - A Counting Journey Through Tanzania, by Laurie Krebs and Julia Cairns, took the children on a beautifully illustrated safari through the grasslands of Tanzania, a large country in Eastern Africa. Then, the children made their own Swahili counting books.
