Kenya Activities

[Blietek]

LOOK AT THE GHANA ACTIVITIES POSTED LAST WEEK, WE CAN USE SOME OF
THOSE ACTIVITIES FOR THE KENYA WEEK. MANY AFRICAN CULTURES HAVE CRAFTS
IN COMMON.

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**Kenyan Flag Box**

With a basic wooden box and some paint, children can create a Kenyan
flag box with just a little adult supervision. The paintable wooden
boxes sold in craft stores are ideal, but any plain wooden box will
work. You need black, red, green and white paints. Teach the children
what the colors mean symbolically and why they were chosen to
represent Kenya: green symbolizes the land, black represents the
people of Kenya, red symbolizes blood shed in the struggle for
independence and white means peace. They could paint each side of the
box a different color or paint stripes in the correct order (black at
the top, red in the middle and green at the bottom, with narrow white
bands in between). The Kenyan flag features a shield and crossed
spears in the center. Older children can copy this emblem onto their
box and paint it; younger ones can cut a picture of the shield and
glue it onto the box.

Note: we can use small cardboard boxes instead

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**Sunset Safari Artwork**

Kenya is a popular safari destination that is home to many animals
that children may be familiar with. For a simple but effective picture
of a safari scene, children can paint a “sunset” backdrop, then glue
on animal silhouettes cut from black construction paper. The animals
will appear to be shadowed by the setting sun. Animal silhouettes are
easy for children to make as they are just outlines without any
detail. They can draw the animal shapes freehand, or trace around
photos or pictures from books, copy the outline onto black paper and
cut out the shapes. Elephants, giraffes, rhinos, ostriches, monkeys
and lions are all appropriate, and a baobab tree silhouette adds to
the scene. To make the sunset background, take a piece of paper and
dampen it all over with water and a paintbrush. Choose either a red or
blue sunset, and start at the top with a horizontal stripe of a darker
shade. Make adjacent horizontal stripes using increasingly lighter
shades. Because the paper is wet, the different shades will blend
together where they meet. When the paint is dry, arrange the animal
shapes on the background and glue them in place.

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These activities came from: http://www.ehow.co.uk/list_6731370_kenyan-crafts-kids.html

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** Faux "Kisii" sculpture**

Materials:

Ivory soap bar
water
butter knife

What to do:

1. Soften the Ivory Soap with a little water.
2. Using the butter knife to sculpt the soup to the animal desired.
3. Let it dry

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This activity came from: http://artworkinparis.tripod.com/africa.html

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