Learning Islands

After the morning circle and toothbrushing, the children can chose what and with whom they want to play. There are different learning islands arranged around the hall:

-         Bricks

-         Toys

-         Cars

-         Cuddly toys

-         Disguise box

-         Drawing and painting

-         Parlour games box

-         Activity box (balls, rope, frisbees)

Independent playing promotes a childs creativity. They also learn how to play with other children. We have got some extra “room-seperators” made out of wood and chitenge cloth to separate the learning islands, to give the children some privacy and to help them to concentrate only on their creative play.

 Put together, the room-seperators do not need much storing place.

A big shelf helps to organize the toys and materials.

Nursery Chichewa

Sit down.	Khala(ni) basi.
Leave it.	Siya.
I ask you.	Ndikufusa.
Ask your friend.	Fusa nzako
Say it louder.	Nena kwambiri. Kweza kwambiri.
Go for break.	Pita(ni) (m)ukapume
I can do it myself.	Ndipanga ndekha
Careful	Samala
Slowly/quietly	Pangono pangono
Fast, fast	Changu changu
Now, now! (=sofort!)	Pompo, pompo!
Let´s go outside	Tiyeni panja
Be quiet	Khala(ni) chete!
Finger to mouth – one!	Chala pa kamwa – one!
Fingernails	Zikhadabo
When you come back from the toilet, wash hands!	Mukamachokera ku toilet kusamba manja!
Do it again. (zum Beispiel für “würfle nochmal”)	Pangaso.
Come here.	Bwera kuno.
Please.	Chonde.
Like this.	Choncho.
This.	Ichi.

Games

Orange tiger

The children absolutely love this game!

The teacher (or one child) stands on one side of the hall, the other children on the other side. The teacher shouts: “Who is afraid of the orange tiiiii-ger?!”

The children answer: “No-one!”

The teacher asks: “And if I come?”

The children answer: “Then we run a-way!”

The teacher shouts: “RAAAW!” – and both sides start running!

The children have to reach the other side of the hall (where the teacher is) and touch the wall. When they touch the wall, they are save. But before they can reach the wall, the teacher has to catch as many of them as he cans. Every child that has been caught, turns to be a tiger as well.

Next round: The teacher and all the caught children are the tigers, standing on the other side of the hall now. On the opposide wall, the remaining humans have to stand. The game starts again…

Who is afraid of the orange tigers?

No-one!

And if we come?

Then we run away!

RAAAW!!

Until the last human standing (=the winner).

 

Hide and seek

We had to show the children how to hide in proper places, and especially to not hide with ALL of their friends in the same place!

Sporting exercises

Circle your arms! Left arm/Right arm/Both arms.

Jumping Man! (Hampelmann)

Jump on one foot! Left foot/Right foot.

Try to touch your toes with your fingers.

Run on the spot. Faster! Faster! Stop! Sneak on the spot. Stamp on the spot.

Hop like a frog.

Crawl like a cat.

Spin like a helicopter.

Box in the air.

We are going on a lion hunt

A circle made of our chairs was our safe home, where we started the hunt. The teacher was the hunt leader who lead the children through the hall giving instructions: Run! Push the high grass away! Walk through the mud… Swim trough the river! Hop from stone to stone! Crawl… and so on. After a while, the group sees a tiger (another teacher). The lion-teacher start now hunting the children group who hurry the same way back home. When they are safe inside of the chair circle, they are tired and rest. We make a 30 seconds “siesta”!

Mackenzie-Makkarena

Mackenzie was the name of our school, you can put the name of your school!

I know a school and it´s called Mackenzie

It´s my school, it´s so cool,

We all love Mackenzie!

I know a school and it´s really fancy,

Eey Mackenzie! Ay!

The place to my right is free

The place to my right is free,

Shamilu, please come to me! (As what should I come? Come as a tiger!)

Tunnel-Crawling

Arrange the children in two competitive rows. When you shout “start, crawl!” The last child in the row has to crawl under the legs of the other children and stand at the front of the row. Every child has to crawl. The first group that has had all its members crawling through its row, has won.

You can also play it backwards: The first child in the row has to crawl backwards to the end of the row…

Musical Chairs/ Journey to Jerusalem

Special rules: Put some chairs together in the middle of the hall. In the beginning, there should be as many chairs as children. Each child sits down on one chair. When the music starts playing, the children have to jump off the chairs and start dancing around the chairs. The teacher takes one chair away quickly. The music stops, and the children have to sit down immediately. Normally, the last child that doesn´t get a chair drops out of the game and the game goes on until there is only one chair and one winner left.

But a nicer possibility especially for little children is to tell the children that all of them have to sit down on the chairs that are left, they have to share the space and sit one on the lap of the other. Every round, there are less chairs left and the game becomes funny and tricky!

Squeak Piggy, Squeak!

All children stand in a circle. One child is chosen and gets its eyes covered with a cloth. The teacher twists the child around a bit, to make it lose orientation. Then the child starts walking around and has to touch another child, asking it: “Squeak, piggy squeak!” The other child has to say “squeak!” and the first child has to guess, who it has touched. “Is it Max?” The group of children has to anwer yes or no! If the child has guessed correctly, it can stand in the circle with the other children and Max gets his eyes covered…

Lazy Egg

All children stand in a circle. One child is chosen and gets its eyes covered with a cloth. The teacher twists the child around a bit, to make it lose orientation. Then the child starts walking around and has to touch another child, asking it: “Squeak, piggy squeak!” The other child has to say “squeak!” and the first child has to guess, who it has touched. “Is it Max?” The group of children has to anwer yes or no! If the child has guessed correctly, it can stand in the circle with the other children and Max gets his eyes covered…

Toothbrushing

Many children in the nursery had bad teeth and caries. They didn´t brush teeth at home. The parents were not aware of the importance of brushing teeth, especially not the first teeth that will fall out and be replaced anyway...

So we got each of them a toothbrush and buyed some tooth paste. We wrote the names of the learners on their brush and sticked them into a egg carton (It is better if the brushes don´t touch each other when you keep them, to avoid the spread of infections).

Out of to frisbees and some styropor I made a toothbrushing model and we explained them the most important points of toothbrushing:

• Brush in circles
• Brush each tooth in a circle
• Brush the top teeth and the bottom teeth
• Brush the inside and outside of the teeth
• Brush the chewing surface
• Brush every morning when you get up and every evening when you go to bed

Every day when we dissolved the morning circle, we marched to our tooth-brushing place outside of the nursery hall. Marching  to that place, we sung the toothbrushing song. We stood in a circle around our purple bucket that had a tub. The teachers distributed the toothbrushes and toothpaste. For hygenical reasons, please do not put the toothpaste directly from the tub to the brushes, but make little paste pies on a plate first and take the paste from there with your brush. When every child had got toothbrush and toothpaste, the children started brushing. The teachers helped a little, if child needed help. Most important was to remember them to "spit out!" when they already got tears in their eyes because their mouths were full of saliva.

Toothbrushing – Song

Brush brush brush your teeth

Brush brush brush your teeth

Brush brush brush your teeth

Everyday!

Brush the top teeth,

Brush the bottom teeth.

Brush the front teeth,

Brush the back teeth.

Brush brush brush your teeth

Brush brush brush your teeth

Brush brush brush your teeth

Everyday!

I have a little toothbrush

I have a little toothbrush

I hold it very tight

I brush my teeth each morning

And then again at night.

Toothbrushing-Story

This picture is part of a toothbrushing-story that I have written and illustrated myself. You can see all 7 pictures here: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjRhMzMzM2I5NTVkOGEyOGE

I also have high-quality scans of the pictures that are too big to upload them, but that I can send you on a CD for free if you contact me (elena.ziegler.ruiz@googlemail.com).

The story of Tsogolo and the Caries-Monsters exists in English and in Chichewa. We had a meeting with the parents in the nursery in which we informed them about the importance of toothbrushing. We read aloud the story and the informational sheets and gave them Chichewa handouts. The parents were very interested!

If you are interested, please follow these links:

Story Tsogolo and the Caries-Monsters: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjQyYmM0OTgyN2ExZTJlNDI

Story handout in Chichewa: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjdiYTA2ZmQzNzgxNTdhNzc

Information for parents English version: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjMyMjVmM2RjZjBiMDQxMzE

Information for parents Chichewa version: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx2b2x1bnRlZXJ0cnlpbmd0b3RlYWNofGd4OjEwYTQ1NGFkNmVkYzE5MTY

Handwashing

[For handwashing and toothbrushing, we invested in a purple plastic bucket with a tub. In Malawi, you could buy them in every plastic store.]

6 Steps of handwashing

with gestures!

1) Palm to palm

2) Back of hands

3) Thumbs –

another thumb

4) Wrists –

another wrist

5) Spaces between fingers

6) Aaaand?! (Children know the answer)

Fingernails! (Chichewa: Zikhadabo!)

Handwashing-Song

tune: Wheels on the bus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vrQA-DTp0g

with gestures!

The soap on our hands goes squirt squart squirt (soap your hands)

squirt squart squirt

squirt squart squirt

The soap on our hands goes squirt squart squirt

As we wash our hands!

The germs on our hands go ieh ieh ieh (shrug disgusted your shoulders)

ieh ieh ieh

ieh ieh ieh

The germs on our hands go ieh ieh ieh

As we wash our hands!

The water on our hands goes swish swash swish (wipe your hands)

swish swash swish

swish swash swish

The water on our hands goes swish swash swish

As we wash our hands!

The towel on our hands goes rub dub dub (clap your hands turning them up and down)

rub dub dub

rub dub dub

The towel on our hands goes rub dub dub

As we wash our hands!

(stretch your hands to the front, inside the circle so that everone can see them)

Look, our hands are squeeky clean

squeeky clean, squeeky clean

Look, our hands are squeeky clean

Because we washed our hands!

Learning Songs

I hear it

tune: „Los peces en el rio“, spanish Christmas song

My friend can you hear it? It´s just here!

My friend can you hear it? It´s so very near!

I hear it, I hear it, Ine ndikumva (Chichewa)!

My friend I can hear it, hear it with my ears!

Ten blue bottles

[Originally "ten green bottles", but we wanted to avoid trouble with the parents because of Carlsberg green, the popular beer in Malawi in green bottles... Also, water in Malawi´s stores is sold in blue plastic bottles - so we had only blue bottles to show when singing the song.]

Ten blue bottles hanging on the wall,
Ten blue bottles hanging on the wall,
And if one blue bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be nine blue bottles hanging on the wall!

(…)

One blue bottle hanging on the wall,
One blue bottle hanging on the wall,
And if one blue bottle should accidentally fall,
There'll be no blue bottles hanging on the wall!

Do you know the continents?

Oh, do you know the continents?
The continents
The continents
Do you know the continents?
Name them if you can

North America, South America
Europe, Asia, Africa
Don’t forget Australia
Don’t forget Antarctica

Oh, do you know the continents?
The continents
The continents
Do you know the continents?
Name them if you can

Look who´s got the ball

Look who´s got the ball

(Choose a child)´s got it, she will roll it

Who will get the ball?

Drum-song

Listen, Listen Here I Come
Someone special gets the drum
(Hand the drum to a child)
“Kefas”, can you play along as we sing?
Repeat (Go through all the children)

My darling likes little green mangoes

tune: My darling is over the ocean

My darling likes little green mangoes,

My darling likes them really green,

My darling does not like ripe mangoes,

Oh he likes them really green, oh green!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he likes,

He likes!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he likes!

My darling loves little green mangoes,

My darling loves them really green,

My darling does not love ripe mangoes,

Oh he loves them really green, oh green!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he loves,

He loves!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he loves!

My darling eats little green mangoes,

My darling eats them really green,

My darling does not eat ripe mangoes,

Oh he eats them really green, oh green!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he eats,

He eats!

Mangoes, mangoes,

Green mangoes is all that he eats!

Colour Songs

Ladiladida or The little green frog

1)      Mmm-mmh, went the little green frog one day
mmm-mmh, went the little green frog
mmm-mmh, went the little green frog one day
and they all went mmm-mmh-ah!

We all know frogs go – (start hopping like a frog on the ground) la-di-ladi-da
ladiladida, ladiladida,
we all know frogs go – la-di-ladi-da
they don´t go mmm-mmh-ah!

2)      Mmm-mmh, went the little pink flamingo one day
mmm-mmh, went the little pink flamingo
mmm-mmh, went the little pink flamingo one day
and they all went mmm-mmh-ah!

We all know flamingos go – (hop on one leg) la-di-ladi-da
ladiladida, ladiladida,
we all know flamingos go – la-di-ladi-da
they don´t go mmm-mmh-ah

3)      Bzz-bzz, went the little yellow bee one day (…)

4)      Miau-miau, went the little black cat one day (…)

5)      Graw-graw, went the big orange tiger one day (…)

6)      Peep-peep, went the little white Co-coa-bird one day (…)[these are the birds how appear  in huge numbers every sunset and sundown at the shores of Lake Malawi]

7)      Peep-peep, went the little red Timba-bird one day (…)

8)      Blubb-blubb, went the little blue fish one day (…)

9)      Hopp-hopp, went the little purple grasshopper one day (…)[grasshoppers have purple wings in Malawi]

10)  To-röö, went the big grey elephant one day (…)

For each animal, you can do one characteristic activity when singing "Ladiladida". Be creative!

Pass the colour

Tune: Row, row, row your boat

Pass, pass, pass the color,

That´s the game we play!

When the little song is through,

The color name we'll say.

What Color Are You Wearing?

Tune: Mary Had a Little Lamb

If you're wearing red today, red today, red today,

If you're wearing red today, stand up and shout “Hooray!”

If you´re wearing blue today , blue today,

If you´re wearing blue today, stand up and shout "Hooray!"

Rainbow song

Tune: Twinkle, twinkle, little star

Red and orange, green and blue,

Shiny yellow, and purple too.

All the colours that we know,

Live up in the rainbow.

Red and orange, green and blue,

Shiny yellow, and purple too.

Songs for the Morning circle

Welcome-Train

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

Welcome to Shamilu, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

Welcome to Vanvica, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

(…)

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

The Welcome-Train is coming, get on board, chu chu!

(train stops, teacher pulls a imaginary rope)

Chu chu!

children: chu chu!

teacher: Chuuuuh. (deeper)

children: chu…

Thank You – Song

tune: Danke für diesen guten Morgen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMCeBIDHHhU

Thank you for this beautiful morning

Thank you for this bright new day

Thank you that we are all together

And can learn and play!

Don Pepito

for learning how to greet and how to express feelings

tune: Hola Don Pepito

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsx4JzpjO-A

with gestures

I know two really crazy neighbours,

Two neighbours very polite.

I know two really crazy neighbours,

Two neighbours way too polite.

When they meet at a street corner,

Or they meet in a tee room,

You always hear them greet each other,

And see them shaking,

Shaking hands –

Hello Don Pepito! (shake hands with a partner)

Hello Don Jóse!

How are you my friend?

I am very fine today! (show thumbs up)

What about your grandma? (lift shoulders and hands)

I think she´s fine as well. (lift shoulders and hands)

See you, Don Pepito! (wave goodbye)
See you, Don Jóse!

(repeat 2 times, each time a little bit faster)

Winding Bubblegum

with gestures

Winding bubblegum (wind your arms forward)

Winding bubblegum

Pull pull, clap clap clap! (put fists in front of your chest together and pull them apart, clap your hands)

Winding back again (wind your arms backward)

Winding back again

Pull pull, clap clap clap!

Point to the roof, point to the floor (point upward, point downward)

Point to the window, point to the door

Clap hands together, One two three

Put your hands down on your knees.

children shout: Faster! Faster!

You repeat the song, every team faster and even faster!

Once I caught a fish alive

with gestures

One, two, three, four, five (count on your fingers)

Once I caught a fish alive (throw an imaginary fishernet over your shoulders)

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten

Then I let it go again. (sweep with your hands forward)

Why did you let it go?

Because it bite my finger so. (left hand "eats" the right hand)

Which finger did it bite?

This little finger on my right. (show the little finger on your right hand)

possibility to make learning the song easier: teacher sings first, children repeat

teacher: One, two, three, four, five

children: One, two, three, four, five

teacher: Once I caught a fish alive

children: Once I caught a fish alive (…)

In the land of Paradise

with little dancing steps to the left and right

In the land of paradise,

Where we will be no suppliers,

No sorrow, no worry, that´s all.

It´s okay, it´s okay

It´s okay, it´s okay

It´s okay to my body over thee-ee-ee

Rainsong

whenever it rains in the raining season

Tune: Schneeflöckchen, Weißröckchen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_i-qiA0pBI

with movements. we start standing very closely (Make a circle, make a circle, smaller circle, smaller circle)

1)      Raindrop, drip drop, drip drop (imitate raindrops with your fingers on the palm of your hand)

Where did your journey start? (protect your eyes with one hand from an imaginary sun and look to the sky)
You come from the clouds (point up to the sky)
Your way must be far! (take each other´s hands and pull the circle outwards to make it a big circle)

2)   Raindrop, drip drop, drip drop

You let the grass grow (imitate growing grass with the fingers and hands)
You give the world green colour (form a globe with your hands and arms)
and let the rivers flow! (take each others hands and produce a wave with your arms that goes around the circle)

3)      Raindrop, drip drop, drip drop

Thanks for coming by
You water the fields (imitate with your arms a wide plane landscape)
and make the maize come up high! (stand on tiptoes and stretch your fingertips to the sky)