African Resource Box for Primary and Secondary Schools

Ghana Flag

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Daily Life in Ghana

worksheets & quiz

African Resource Box for Hire

The resource box contains a huge variety of information and artefacts from Ghana in West Africa that can be used with many areas of the national curriculum. It also contains worksheets, quizzes and schemes of work specific to Primary or Secondary level (list of contents). The resource box can be hired on a weekly basis allowing the whole school to benefit.

African display at Walton Primary School in Essex

Details of African Resource Box Hire

The cost of hire is £100 for one week hire and £150 for two weeks hire. For further information or to hire the resource box please email or phone (01236 823869).

Some items from the African Resource Box

Students are able to get a real taste of African culture and traditions. The resource box contains a wide range of wooden crafts, African jewellery, leather goods, hats, headscarves, African clothes (men, women and children), musical instruments, African music and games, woven fabrics, batiks and grinding bowl. The box also contains numerous African story books, photographs and worksheets and activity ideas.

Hire the resource box for a week and then culminate the experience with an African Drumming or Art & Craft workshop. The children can showcase their own work from the resource box and ask any questions. The whole African experience will increase awareness of this diverse world and encourage respect for all.

Links with the National Curriculum

The resource box can be used in all subjects of the national curriculum especially in the area of inclusion and respect for all.

Some examples from the National Curriculum are listed below:

Cultural understanding through music

Inclusive, international and outward looking

Cultural understanding through poetry

Dance activities: African Dance

Useful websites for teachers:

Oxfam's Cool Planet for Teachers

Oxfam's Cool Planet for teachers has lots of information about Ghana and issues such as fair trade and sustainability. The children and diversity section has Wake Up World! which compares the daily lives of children in Ghana, Russia, Brazil and India.

www.globalgang.org.uk/planetteacher/fairtrade Christian Aid website for teachers discusses the fair trade of chocolate from Ghana and also snail farming.

Journey through Africa and learn about the animals and people of the desert, savannah and rainforest.

www.pbskids.org/africa/ My world shows a secondary school in Accra, Ghana; play a thumb piano; make an African mask and folktale.

www.pbs.org/wonders/Kids/kids.htm Anansi website with an on-line game.

Children at Pulima Primary School, near Tumu, northern Ghana

Pupils at Kanton Secondary School, Tumu, northern Ghana

List of Contents in the Resource Box

African arts and crafts: selection of wooden crafts and mask, Bolga leather bags, kente strips and traditional mud cloth.

African jewellery: selection of African necklaces and bangles and a selection of African glass beads with information sheets on how the beads are made.

Clothing: headscarves and hats worn by Muslim women and men, selection of African outfits for pupils and teachers, smock dresses worn in the north of Ghana and samples of kente cloth the traditional material of the Ashanti tribe in Ghana. Folder and activity sheets for Ghanaian cloth.

Entertainment: board game Oware, small hand drum, calabash shaker, basket shaker, selection of cd’s and on African music (traditional drumming, xylophone, highlife, reggae, and popular Ghanaian artists and bands).

Languages: List of the most common Ghanaian languages and a text book in Sissali (language spoken by the Sissala tribe in Northern Ghana)

Books and educational materials: Activity folder, pictures for photocopying, map of Ghana, selection of African story books for schools (list of books).

Food: List of common goods found in an African village market, Ghanaian recipe book, selection of dried African foods, grinding bowl, stirring spoon, calabash bowls, calabash spoons, shopping basket, key soap.

Photographs: wildlife, traditional dress, music and dance, types of housing, village markets and foods, schools and education, arts and crafts, farming and crops, other types of employment, beaches and fishing, castles, tourism in Ghana. Click here for photos of life in an African village.