Crafts – Food for Thought Mondo

St. Stephen´s Eshiakhulo Secondary School – Wild Nature

Published on March 16, 2017August 10, 2017 by maimikkelsaarLeave a comment

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA — Pupils in actions – reversed classroom

Hello! We are St. Stephen’s Eshiakhulo Secondary School in Kenya. Our WILD Nature activities involved groupwork around two tasks – messages of plants and making dolls with reused materials and natural materials. All students could work on the project they liked!

We hope our partner school, Toila Gymnasium will see them and organize their project work around the same topic.

Here you can see the pictures we draw. The most important plants in our nature are sugar cane and lemon tree with local importance and coffee tree as an international export article.

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

The second group worked on making dolls. We used materials that we could easily find – plastic bags, seeds, plant fibers. It was really fun to get creative and make something with our hands! The ready-made dolls we brought to our younger siblings.

You can see the process from these pictures and the video:

One group got very artistic with their poster while using the colors of Kenyan national flag!One group got very artistic with their poster while using the colors of Kenyan national flag!

MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

One group got very artistic with their poster while using the colors of Kenyan national flag!

Making figurines out of natural clay in Kon Yome Monastic School, Shan State, Burma

Published on October 13, 2016January 2, 2017 by Viktoria RudenkoLeave a comment

On a fine day of August 6, 2016, all of the students and teachers of Kon Yome invested some time for School Linking activities to send their first message to Tallinn, Estonia. The students walked into the jungle to get some clay for crafting. Once the got the material, everyone found a suitable place in front of the school building in the shadow of the big tree and creativity could start flying.

Sai Zin Pha, 8, showed the greatest mastery and productivity: he started by making a buffalo, then a hippo (or was it and elephant?) and then went on to create other creatures and cars. Some other boys were taking tips from this little fellow.

Nang Zarm Pang, 9, made a beautiful flower and was really pleased with her creation.

Three older girls: Nang Kham Aeng (10), Nang Swe Ing (11) and Nang Khin The (11) had an idea to print leaf patterns into clay and when they got praised for their originality, they gathered some more plants and started to share their original idea among the rest of the kids, especially the younger ones.

Sai Zai, 5, kept very quiet and serious all the time and probably decided to wash clay in a bucket with washing water rather than create any kind of figurines.

Sai Zom One, 10, showed great knowledge of architecture and engineering: he modeled a house with clay walls and a roof made of beautiful purple leaves. He naturally confessed that he had copied the idea from the real houses around him and that when he grows up, he would like to build more houses in his village. This little architecture immediately got a follower: Nang Kham Zang, 8

Nang Si Warn, 8, thought that making just a regular flower was not enough, so she created a picture that one can hang on a wall as soon as the clay gets harder.

After crafting was over, the kids showed us some dancing and singing and then went to have a school break.

I guess now they are eagerely waiting for a reply from Tallinn Pae High School students!

Wild animals of Ghana by 5th grade of Gorug School

Published on October 12, 2016January 27, 2017 by marijogisteLeave a comment

5th class of Kong-Gorug Primary School made an art project about wild animals in Ghana. We made sculptures of native animals of Africa (elephants, crocodiles, zebras, lions). We collected clay from the field near our school and each student made their own animal. When all the animals were finished we placed them on the classroom floor and drew a water hole on the ground for them to drink from. Then we sang a song about the same animals. Our friends from 4th grade made drawings of our sculptures.

Animals at the water hole

5th grade students with their work

We are going to collect the clay

Art activities with natural materials in Kong-Gorug Primary School

Published on October 12, 2016January 2, 2017 by marijogisteLeave a comment

Kong-Gorug Primary School students from 4th, 5th and 6th class worked very hard for two weeks in September of 2016 and participated in many different art activities. We mostly made art using different natural materials. For example we printed different patterns with leaves and did drawings from shadows of different plants from around our school.

We also made land art works in the classroom from natural materials such as grass, sticks, leaves, flowers and stones. 6th class created land art works of traditional Adinkra symbols. Adinkra is a traditional textile printing art of the Ashanti people in Ghana. Special symbols with religious and philosophical meanings are printed on cloth with natural pigments extracted from different trees. Nowadays these symbols are widely used for decorative purposes all over Ghana. We see these symbols on people’s clothes, painted on buildings or imprinted on different products (as logos or decoration).

6th class worked in three groups who each chose one symbol to make from natural materials. 1st group created the symbol “Gye Nyame” or “Only God”, which represents the omnipotence and immortality of God. 2nd group made the symbol “Nserewa”, or “Cowries” which is the sacred okra flower, which stands for wealth, affluence, abundance and sanctity. The 3rd group used white stones to make “Ese ne Tekrema”- “The Teeth and the Tongue” which reminds people the need for friendliness and interdependence to enable improvement, advancement and growth. After all, our teeth and tongue may come into conflict with each other from time to time (we accidentally bite our tongue) but they still need to work together for us to be able to eat and grow strong. The same is true for our relationships with other people.