Thursday, May 26, 2011

Mwezi wa Farasi

Volunteers are all encouraged to share our American culture with our villages. I’ve enjoyed doing lessons on how we celebrate Halloween and Easter…and now the Kentucky Derby!

As a Kentuckian, what’s May without the Derby? So for my classes May became Mwezi wa Farasi, or Month of the Horse. My horse is one of the main things I really miss. Since horses are few in TZ- none in my region- I wanted to share how horses are used and the care they require.


I also wanted to use this opportunity to get the students’ creativity flowing. I had done one other lesson were the students were to draw there their sources of water, food and shelter. It flopped as they just copied what I drew as an example on the board. Art is rarely incorporated into classes here so they don’t know what to do when given the opportunity.

So with the help of tons of great art supplies sent by the Clinton First United Methodist Church, my students and I had a blast with horse-related crafts and games.

Week 1
Looked at postcards from Kentucky featuring horses and the Derby. Colored big white horse cut outs.


Week 2
Traced hands on fabric, cut out and glued to a sheet with a horse painted on it

Week 3
Stick horse racing! I cut the head off 3 of remaining horses from wk 1 and taped to brooms and a mop. Pictures weren’t taken this week as it was too chaotic!

Week 4
This week was the last week of school before being out for the month of June so all students were helping harvest the corn in the school's field. Standard 4-6 picked the ears while the younger shucked.

It was great fun!

No comments:

Post a Comment