First, we have discussed Kente cloth and how some tribes in Africa make them. Then we gave a try at weaving ourselves.
Then we decided to turn our Kente cloths into African animals. The students were given graph paper and told to design with squares, any African animal they wanted. I was pleasantly surprised at how creative and accurate they could make their animals to be. We had enough Kente cloths made for two animals.
We had the privilege of having two more guest speakers come into our room and speak with us about their trips to Africa. They even wore their Kente cloths for us. This is Mr. Rudy and Mr. Bill and they told us stories and shared some amazing pictures of the people, places and animals of Africa.
One of the most exciting things that has happened is that we have been able to borrow one of the ESD's roving sets of laptops to use in our classroom. Each student has a laptop on their desk and we are having a blast using them. One of the main things we have been doing is research for our African animal report. Each student had to choose one animal that they don't know very much about and then find our different things about their animal like habitat, diet, lifespan, enemies and 3 things that are unique to their animal.
They could use books as well as their computers.
They loved doing this so much that they wanted to work on their reports during recess!
One of my favorite projects of this African unit has been the making of our masks. I gave only basic directions - their masks had to have 2 eyes, a mouth and a nose. Those were my only directions and then I just put out materials for them to use. They did some pretty awesome things. I loved the creativity!
I will be posting about our power point presentations and Grandparent's Day later this week!
