On the days when I am not in school I am always busy with
other aspects of my work. One of the
things I really enjoy, is making new resources which I can then show to
teachers in order to give them some ideas of resources they might like to
make. As volunteers we share a lot of
ideas and these often help me to think of ways I could adapt them to make
something slightly different. I have
turned into a bit of a Mr Trebus and have a room with lots of “stuff” in it
that could be used to make resources.
This means that I can show teachers resources which are made out of
locally available materials and therefore, the making of materials is
sustainable and not based on bringing equipment and material which cannot be
quickly, easily and cheaply got hold of here.
The one thing we use most as education volunteers, is the
rice sack. You can do all sorts of
things with a rice sack. First you have
to cut it to the required size. This
firstly involves cutting it to open it up.
Usually I chop the full rice sack in two and use it as two large
pieces. This is certainly good for
making posters and word walls in classrooms.
However, smaller pieces can be used for making dominoes, flashcards,
labels etc. A whole (uncut) rice sack
can also be fashioned into an item of dress up clothing – an outfit for a
farmer, nurse, police officer for example.
Or even a skeleton (which you can later encourage students to add labels
of bones to). We try to make sure that
the materials are not just didactic and that they can be used as interactively
as possible with the students. I have
since made a rice sack map of Rwanda and with it I have a whole heap of
flashcards each with a small piece of sticky tape on the back which can be
fixed in the correct geographical location – to mark directions, towns, tourism
hot spots, landforms etc. Following a
lesson planning session with a teacher who wanted to teach prepositions, I also
have a rice sack poster with a plan of a village on it. There is a small person (whom I like to call
Eric) made out of cardboard with sticky tape on his back. Eric can be moved around the village and the
students can be asked to say where he is using the correct prepositions. They can also do written exercises based on
this by stating where certain places are in relation to others.
When not busy cutting up and melting rice sacks, I try to
think of other things to do. Lately I have
been keen to make games. Very few
children here have seen board games, so I feel it is only fair to give them
some idea of the fun you can have with these!
One rainy afternoon a fellow volunteer helped to make a version of
“Twister”. We did use a rice sack for
this – we cut it open so it was a large area and drew around a tablemat to
create the circles and then sat for an age colouring in with a crayon. There was a powercut, so not much else to
do. Then, using a piece of cardboard and
some bottle tops and string, we fashioned (well...actually Margaret did a
fabulous job of fashioning) a spinner. This
game has now been played in several staffrooms and at training and slowly we
are getting the teachers to realise it could be used for teaching colours,
parts of the body and generally having a bit of fun (I am yet to discover the
translation for “for fun”).
Another game I have made a version of is Scrabble. You can’t get it here. So I have made a version of it with a rice
sack board and then made letters out of bottle tops. The tops can either be sprayed white for ease
of writing on them, or a piece of masking tape can be used to cover the bottle
top before writing on them. This is an
excellent way to help students improve their vocabulary and it involves a
little bit of maths. I have since
realised that a greater number of consonants would be required if this game
were to be played using ikinyarwanda.
Bottle tops can also be collected and then strung together
to make counting strings for younger students.
Keeping them on a string saves having to scrabble around on the floor
picking them up from the darkest corners of a classroom when you are finished (you
learn from experience). But, they can
also be covered or painted and then have monetary values written on them so that
they can be used as money in role play games or in mathematics when children
learn about money.
Old cardboard boxes can also be used to cut up and make into
a variety of things. Jen showed me how
to make a clock face with movable hands – I remember having one of these as a
child – so I have made some and given them to teachers, but have lately had
teachers make their own version so that they can use them when they teach their
students how to tell the time. Cardboard
pieces and string can be used to make matching games – pictures and words for
example. Pictures down one side of the
cardboard and the vocabulary down the other side with a little slit next to
each so you can slot the string in to match up the picture and word. I have also added some for simple maths
equations, countries and capital cities...the fun you can have!
Some foodstuff here arrives in lovely old fashioned tin
cans. I have porridge for breakfast and this always comes in a tin – as does
the milk powder. These are excellent
kept just for storage, but there are other things they can be used for. Jen has demonstrated to me how they can have
a piece of string threaded through their base and then stretched out and strung
through a second can. If the length of
string is stretched taut (it needs to be about 5m) and you speak into one can,
it is possible for a partner to put their ear against the other end and hear
what you say. A very old fashioned
telephone device. But it does
demonstrate how sound waves can travel.
I rarely have them, but I have bought milk in Kigali a
couple of times and kept the plastic 2l bottles the milk comes in. This can be made in to a car of sorts. The lids of Blueband margarine can be put on
a skewer which is pushed through the bottle.
A piece of sting can be put through the cap of the milk bottle to make a
pulling device. This “car” needs a
little refinement – I need to make sure the wheels don’t come off their skewer,
but it works fairly well.
There are very few children’s story books in Rwanda. There are currently plans to introduce more
reading material, but, in the meantime I have employed my trusty rice
sacks. I have cut them into smaller
pieces (and sealed the edges in a candle to melt them and stop them from
fraying) and then I have created some versions of popular children’s books. These are very popular in the schools I have
used them and students have already begun to memorise some of the repeated
lines. It’s also been good fun to make
the books, but the artwork can take some time (especially if you decide you
must do a version of Elmer!).
Because plastic bags are not allowed in Rwanda, shopping is
packaged in paper bags. These are most
often plain brown paper bags. Some of
these I use when sending parcels to people, but they can also make very
effective hand puppets. You just need to
fold the top over to create a mouth and then decorate as you see fit and hey
presto! I have encouraged teachers to
make use of these – especially in Social Studies lessons where they could be
people from the local community or they could be used to address some of the
difficult discussions that may be had in a lesson on conflict.
Now, I’ve always wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter, and a
lecturer on my MSc course did once remark after a presentation I did that it
was “a bit Blue Peter” (I’m pretty sure he meant professional), so if anyone
from the BBC is out there and reading this...what do you think?
