MULTICULTURAL FOLKLORE FOR NURSERY-AGE CHILDREN
It is essential for children to be introduced to a wide variety of literary experiences. Of these opportunities, most of them should include multicultural components that represent the children in the classroom and expand their understanding of diversity and traditions. Offering multicultural folklore allows students to gain a deeper understanding of cultural roots because folklore is seeded in tradition and customs.
BOOK SUMMARY
The Gift of the Sun: A Tale From South Africa by Dianne Stewart introduces Thulani, a lazy man who enjoys sitting in the sun rather than doing chores. The African folktale describes how Thulani was tired of milking his cow, so he traded it for a goat. This continues as Thulani switches animal for animal until he finally receives sunflowers seeds. As the flowers bloom, his wife Dora exclaims her dismay because they cannot eat or use the sunflowers. However, the chickens begin eating the seeds and producing more eggs than ever. They are able to sell the extra eggs for-profit and eventually purchase a new cow. Thulani discovers his joy for work when it is something he enjoys.
BOOK EVALUATION
A Gift of the Sun: A Tale From South Africa is an engaging and cohesive story that follows a recurring pattern in the character's actions. The flow of words and supporting vocabulary support young readers as they explore new ideas and cultures through the text. The straightforward structure aligns with the typical oral story-telling while exploring a universal theme of hard work and problem-solving. The illustrations further enhance the overall message by offering antique-style drawings with appropriate cultural detail for the setting. The medium, technique, and style fit the book's overall purpose and mood of the book.
MOTIVATIONAL ACTIVITIES
1. MAKE A SUNFLOWER- Teachers can offer students yellow markers, glue, sunflowers, a paper plate, and green construction paper and encourage them to make their own sunflower. When the activity is complete, the sunflower art will be hung next to one another to create a sunflower garden.
Bryan, A. (2003). Beautiful blackbird. Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
Heo, Y. (2012). Lady Hahn and her seven friends. Henry Holt.
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ReplyDeleteGreat blog entry! I enjoyed reading the summary you provided of this interesting book. I noticed that this text “reflects the cultural integrity of early re-tellings, explores significant universal themes, and offers authentic cultural detail in the illustrations”, thus this seems to be a South African folktale that is also multicultural (Galda, Liang, and Cullinan, 2017). What a great choice! Another possible activity you could incorporate into your classroom could be creating sunflower masks! The children would all be given paper plates and be instructed to cut out the center portion of the plate. After doing so, they would cut out yellow petal shapes out of construction paper and glue these pieces around the entire edge of the plate. Once this step is finished, the child will either staple or the teacher can hot glue a craft stick on to the bottom portion of the mask. The teacher will then instruct all the children to hold their paper plate sunflowers masks up revealing their faces in the center portions!
ReplyDeleteAnother fun activity that does requires more physical activity would be Musical Sunflowers. After creating or printing an image of a bug and multiple sunflowers, the instructor will place all of the pictures in a circle and instruct the children to stand on a picture. When the music cuts off, whoever lands on the bug image is out of the game. You continue this process until you have one sunflower standing.