Friends of African Village Libraries/CESRUD May 2013

c/o Sumbrungu Community Library Box 267

Bolgatanga, Upper East Ghana

Activities Guide

A guide for librarians full of fun and educational activities

to organize at the library

Friends of African Village Libraries/CESRUD

PAGE 2 Introduction

This guide has been created for you, the librarians, to offer ideas of different ac-tivities to organize at the library. There are activities for children, students and adults. There are reading, art and theatre activities as well educational workshops. There are a number of activities for you to try, but please do not be limited to this guide. Use your knowledge, imagi-nation and creativity to organize other fun activities that are both educational and productive. Feel free to add activi-ties that you know and you would like to share in the guide. Have Fun!

Educational Sessions PAGE 19

Awareness about female excision Excision is a practice that often impedes social and cultural well-being of girls and women. Materials: Pictures of female genital tract, excision First meeting List the external parts of the female genital tract. Show the diagram and discuss. [Note: The facilitator directs without pressure.] Animator: What do you see in this picture? Is excision is a good thing? Organize into two groups: those that are for and against excision. Dis-cuss the different ideas. Each person explains why they are for or against excision.

Animator explains that non-excised women are also clean and re-spected and do not make their husbands impotent. Excised women can be traumatized by the pain they suffer. It is not true that the clitoris of the non-excised woman kills her baby at birth. Excised women feel less during sexual intercourse.

Second session Recall of the two arguments. Each member of the groups makes a resolution to confirm or disprove his choice. Explain: Excision may cause sterility in women. Excision can cause hemorrhage, tetanus, AIDS, which can lead to death. Excised women who give childbirth will experience painful births and potential deadly conditions afterwards.

PAGE 18 Educational Sessions

Hygiene awareness: Experiment with hot pepper Objectives: Students should be able to: Understand that most of the bacteria that cause illness are invisible. Wash hands with soap every time you eat Purpose: To show that invisible bacteria in your body can cause disease, just like chili reacts with the eyes. Materials needed: hot pepper, soap, dish, water Choose a student and ask him to touch the pepper with his hand. Ask if the hot pepper is visible on the hand. Ask the student if he would rub his eyes with his hand. When he refuses, ask why. Offer a little water to the student and have him wash his hands (without soap). Again, ask him to rub his eye. If he still refuses, ask why. Now provide soap and water to the student and ask him to wash his hands. Now he will touch his hand to his face. Explain that while hot pepper on a hand is not always visible, but it is still dangerous and painful when you rub your eyes without washing your hands. It is the same for bacteria. They are invisible, but they can cause illness if you do not wash your hands. When you eat without washing your hands, your stomach will hurt just like the hot pepper in the eye. So always wash your hands before eating!

PAGE 3 Table of Contents

Reading Techniques… … … … … … … … …p. 4 Reading Activities… … … … … … … …p. 5—8 Art activities… … … … … … … … … p. 9—10 Song and Dance… … … … … … … … … …p. 11 Fun Games … … … … … … … … … p. 12—13 Debates … … … … … … … … … …p. 14—15 Theatre … … … … … … … … … … …p. 16—17 Educational Sessions… … … … … … …p.18—19

PAGE 4 Reading Techniques

Each child learns in a different way, especially when it comes to read-ing. There are various techniques that you can use with young readers to improve their literacy skills. 1. Guided free reading Each student takes a book of their choice and reads silently while you supervise. Students can ask questions regarding difficult words, phrases or images. 2. Free reading Each student takes a book of his or her choice and sits in the library or out in courtyard to read. 3. Group reading Divide the children into small groups. Choose a book for each group. One by one, the child reads out loud as his peers follow and listen si-lently. When the reader has finished the passage, he passes the book to his neighbor to continue. 4. Peer tutoring Place children into pairs, two by two, strong readers with weak readers. The two read together, the stronger reader helping the weaker reader. This is a very good exercise that makes weaker readers more comfortable and raises the confidence of strong readers.

Theater (cont.) PAGE 17

Using theater to educate Theater is an effective way to get people thinking about how situations relate to their lives. Find a group of kids who are not too timid (theater doesn’t work well is everyone is afraid to speak!) and find a topic that the kids feel strongly about or that is currently an issue in your community. Here are some examples, but you can create a play about anything (hygiene, the library, eating nutritious meals, etc., etc.). Scenario: delaying sex Fatima meets a young man named Boubacar at school. She likes him because he is handsome and athletic. He greets her after class and gives her a gift, and says it’s for their future friendship. He invites her to out to a bar. Fatima likes him but the situation makes her uncomfortable. What should she do? Scenario: peer pressure 1. A group of friends from school are at a dance party. They are danc-ing and having a good time together. One of the friends brings out a beer from under his/her jacket. He or she begins to drink and tries to get the others to drink with him/her. Some of the friends in the group agree. Show how others might deal with this peer pressure situation. 2. A group of friends are walking around town. They have nothing to do and are bored. One of them suggests they go steal from the candy shop. Some approve because it will be something exciting for them to do. On the way there, one of them is afraid and does not want to par-ticipate. Create a role play showing what this person would do to resist peer pressure.

PAGE 16 Theater

“Oh Henry” This activity is a great introduction to theater for beginners. It is an ex-ercise in expressing emotions. Ask the group form a circle. Remind them we communicate in many different ways, including with our bodies and our voices. Explain that this activity will illustrate how dif-ferent uses of our voice and our body can communicate different things. Show how you can say the sentence "Oh Henry" to express various emotions, such as anger, fear and laughter. Ask each participant to take a turn and practice different intonations and facial expressions. Some emotions to try: Sadness, anger, fear, grief, anxiety, joy, love, passion, confusion, depression, jealousy, misery, regret, guilt, disap-pointment, happiness. After each participant has taken a turn, discuss what techniques were used to express the different emotions. Have each participant take an-other turn, and this time, the group has to guess which emotion is be-ing expressed.

Reading Activities PAGE 5

Alphabet Workshop In this activity, students practice the alphabet and each letter’s sound. It can be done with a large or small group of students. Write each letter of the alphabet on a small piece of paper several times, so that you end up with 4 or 5 sets of the alphabet. Spread the pieces of paper out ran-domly in front of the kids. Work on various techniques like: identify-ing letters and words that start with the letters, putting letters in order, associating sounds with letters, creating syllables, etc. Look at the cover ... and guess! Divide the children into small groups and choose a book that no one has read. Show them only the cover. Tell them to imagine what will happen in the book, simply by looking at the cover image and title. Have them share their thoughts with the group. After, read the book to the group and assess whether they were right and why they made the predictions they did. Guess the ending

Read a story to the children, but stop a few pages before the resolution of the story. Let students exchange ideas about how they think the story should end. After the exchange read the ending of the story and see who’s prediction was the closest.

PAGE 6 Reading Activities (cont.)

Noun-Mania Start students with a noun (ex: house). They write that word at the top of a sheet of paper. Say "Go!" and students will extend their list by writ-ing a noun that begins with the last letter of the noun before it. The activity continues. The person with the longest list of nouns at the end of three minutes is the winner. (ex: house, elephant, toe, egg, gerbil, ladder, road, dollar, robot) Verify that all words are nouns. Alphabet Country Ask students to sit in a circle on the floor. Choose a student and ask him or her to name a country of the world that begins with the letter A. The next student in the circle should name a country that begins with B, then C, and so on until the class has identified a country for every letter of the alphabet (except X). If a student cannot name a country, the turn passes to the next student in the circle. If more than three students in a row are stumped by the same letter, return to the first stumped student and allow him or her to look for a country on a map or globe. If time allows, ask each student to create an alphabet book of the countries of the world. Word BINGO Write a list of 20+ words on the blackboard. Give each student a sheet of paper that they fold in halves until its folded into sixteenths. Each student unfolds their piece of paper and writes one word from the list in each of the boxes. They can choose any words that they like. Begin

calling out the words on the blackboard, one by one. When a student gets four words in a line (horizontally, vertically or diagonally), they stand up and shout “BINGO!” Play can continue until eve-ryone has won.

Debates (cont.) PAGE 15

Potential themes for debates: 1. We do not need to sleep at night with mosquito nets. 2. Why use latrines when we have nature? 3. Since every woman will marry and have children and have her hus-

band take care of her, women do not need to continue school after the primary level.

4. Sexual relations before marriage are part of modern life. 5. Using condoms is against African cultures. 6. "It is good for a boy to experience sex before marriage, but if a girl

does so, she is a prostitute.” 7. Only men have the right to decide when to have sex with their

wives. 8. Continuing their education is the best way for women to be inde-

pendent. 9. Having more than one sexual partner gives you a fuller life. 10. The use of condoms prevents you to experience true sexual pleas-

ure.

PAGE 14 Debates

Debates are great activities to do with people of all ages and education level. It is a great way to share ideas and introduces different opinions.

Small group discussions This is a good activity to do with younger children and get them to exchange ideas with their peers. Ask questions about their culture and environment. After giving them a minute to think, begin the discus-sion. Examples of topics: a) How to avoid malaria; b) How to respect the library; c) Maintenance of books in the library; d) Use of latrines; e) How to succeed at school; f) How to overcome peer pressure

Debates Discussions organized around formal arguments between two diver-gent groups on a controversial issue are very effective. Debates are more effective if you: Choose a theme that participants really care about Insist that the participants team up on the opposite group of the

argument they believe. This forces them to think differently and analyze the discussion on all levels to develop an effective argu-ment. This also helps them see things from the perspective of oth-ers.

Write themes of the debate in advance so that participants can re-search and collect information to develop their arguments.

Divide into teams for the debate. Try to make them argue and de-fend by turns so that everyone is obliged to think and participate.

Have judges (parents, teachers, health staff, etc.) come and listen to the arguments and choose the winning team. Hand out small prizes.

Reading Activities (cont.) PAGE 7

Book report Ask a library member to choose a book to take home. After they read it, have them write a short summary that you can display in the library. The report should say what the story is about and what the reader liked or disliked about it. You can also organize a session where readers meet and share their summaries with others.

Write a story

Invite readers to write a story or fable of their choice.

Share a story with family This activity is a good way to raise awareness of the library and its im-portance in the community. Ask readers to choose a book they like and bring it home to their families. They should read, share and discuss the story with different family members. The next day, the child shares or writes about his experience.

Poetry Writing

Explain the concept of poetry and rhymes to the group. Play matching games to make sure kids understand rhymes. After, have them write their own poems and decorate them with drawings in colored pencil to create a book.

Acrostic Poetry Have each student choose a word or name of a person and write it ver-tically on a sheet of paper. For each letter in the word, students come up with a line to describe it. Example: B rings out your imagination O ne can enter a new world O ne of a kind K eeps your brain smart

Yesse

Have the children form a line. Say a word, like "school" or "book", for example. One by one, the students call out the letter to spell the given word. If someone makes a mistake, the group shouts "Yesse" and they are eliminated. The last child left standing is the winner. You can add rules if you want. For example, the first child says the letter, the second says the sound of this letter and the third one says a word that begins with that letter. Hopscotch

Draw hopscotch on the ground with chalk. In each hopscotch square, write a letter of the alphabet. The children play the game normally, but when they land in a square they must say the letter, its sound and a word beginning with that letter.

PAGE 8 Reading Activities (cont.) Fun Games (cont.) PAGE 13

Telephone Ask participants to sit in a circle. Think of a phrase like "There are many people who enjoy working in the garden" or "I will walk toward the river to go fishing." Whisper your phrase softly to the person to your right. This person then quietly whispers the same phrase to the person on their right, and so on. Each person should only whisper what he heard and cannot repeat the phrase more than once. Finally, the person to your left should be the last to hear the sentence. Ask him to repeat it aloud. Then tell the group what your initial phrase was. Burkina Faso, Ghana and Togo With chalk draw three lines down on the ground. Mark Burkina on the first line, Ghana on the middle line and Togo on the third line. All par-ticipants must start on the Ghana line. Begin shouting the names of the 3 countries and participants must jump from one country to an-other (on the line), according to the country you say. If any partici-pant jumps on the wrong country, falls or wobbles, they are out of the game. The last participant standing is the winner. Riddles Ask a riddle to the children. Give them time to reflect the answer and share with to the group. Examples What always sleeps with its shoes on? Answer: a horse What has a bark but no bite? Answer: a tree

PAGE 12 Fun Games

Lifeboat Go outside or in a spacious area. Tell the group to imagine they're floating on a vast ocean. They need to make rescue boats to survive. Yell out a number, for example "6"! Participants should form groups of six to avoid drowning. If the group is composed of more or less than 6 persons, the entire group has “drowned” and is eliminated. The two re-maining people standing are the winners. Spider web Participants form small group - about five or six people. Each person grabs hold of the hands of those in their circle. They cannot hold hands with the person next to them, and they must hold the hands of two different people. Then they must try to untangle and return to one open circle--without letting go of one another’s hands. After every-one is done, ask questions about the activity. What made groups suc-cessful? Why? What techniques were used? Draw the picture Here is a good activity to illustrate the different perceptions people have of what they hear. Ask 5 volunteers to leave the room for a few minutes. Ask participants to draw a simple illustration, like a house or a tree. Bring back the 1st volunteer and show them the drawing for 20 seconds. Hide the picture and then bring in the 2nd volunteer. The 1st volunteer must verbally describe the illustration in the 2nd who in turn describes to the 3rd, and so on. When the 5th volunteer has heard a description, give him a new sheet of paper and colored pencils. He will try to make the illustration as he hears it. They should not receive any help from the group. When he has finished, compare it with the origi-nal.

Art Activities PAGE 9

Drawing Sit the children comfortably at a table with enough space and equip-ment. Let them draw freely. Materials needed: paper, pencils, erasers, crayons and colored pencils. Making necklaces Use old magazines to tear strips, lengthwise, from top to bottom, about 1 inch thick. Children roll the pieces into tight coils. Put a drop of glue at the end to properly close the coils. They must make enough to make a necklace. Attach the coils onto a thin rope or twine and tie it around the neck of the child. Collage Give old magazines to children and let them cut out the pictures and images they want. With glue or tape, they stick the images onto a sheet of paper. You can give each a theme, like "my life at home," "at school" “at the library " Students use pictures related to the theme. Creating a mask Pass out sheets of white paper to children and help them draw the mask outline dotted or solid lines. Masks can be in the form of wild or do-mestic animals, or even vegetables. Cut out the mask and let the chil-dren decorate their masks freely, using colored pencils. Tie the masks to the head of the child using elastics. Each child should write his name behind the mask and you can display them in the library. Materials needed: paper, pencils, col-ored pencils, erasers, crayons, markers, scissors, staplers, rubber bands, glue.

PAGE 10 Art Activities (cont.)

Making a book In this activity, children combine writing and drawing by creating their own book. For example, a student might create a Book of Colors. On each page, the student writes a sentence such as "the pants are yellow," and then illustrates it. Children may work alone or in groups. Display the books in the library. Making bookmarks Cut white paper into the shape of a bookmark (long and rectangular). Let children decorate the bookmarks freely with colored pencils or markers. This activity is a good opportunity to talk about how to prop-erly handle and care for the library books. Origami Origami is an ancient Japanese art form. Different forms are created (animals, flowers, etc.) simply by folding paper in different ways. Head of a Dog 1. Use a regular-sized piece of white paper. Turn it diagonally and fold in two. (Figure 1)

2. Fold over the corners, like the diagram below. (Figure 2) 3. Use crayons or colored pencils to draw a face. (Figure 3) Done!

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

Song and Dance PAGE 11

Alice the Camel Alice the camel has 10 humps, Alice the camel has 10 humps Alice the camel has 10 humps, so go, Alice, GO! Bom Bom Bom… [Continue with 9,8,7…humps until…] Alice the camel has no humps, Alice the camel has no humps Alice the camel has no humps, ‘cause Alice is a HORSE! Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes Head and shoulder, knees and toes, knees and toes. Head and shoulder, knees and toes, knees and toes. And eyes and ears, and a mouth and a nose. Head and shoulder, knees and toes, knees and toes. [Touch the appropriate body part each time it’s mentioned. Second time: don’t say the word “head’’ aloud but still touch it. Each verse thereafter, add another body part that you touch but don’t mention aloud.] B-I-N-G-O There was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o B-I-N-G-O B-I– N-G-O And Bingo was his name-o [Repeat, but when spelling Bingo, clap instead of saying “B.” The next time clap twice in place of “B” and “I.” Continue replacing letters with claps until you’re clapping for each of the letters in Bingo’s name, in-stead of spelling it.]