Teachers Notes for Ghana Beat My Drum

There is nothing that MUST be done before the show. Indeed we request that none of the post-show activities be done before the performance as this gives away too much of the content of the show and spoils its elements of surprise. HOWEVER should you wish to do some pre-show activities.

1. This class discussion is suitable for any aged students and is designed to get them thinking about how children in other parts of the world live.
What is your favourite thing to do?
What is your favourite toy?
Do you now or have you ever had something you played with that wasn't a toy that was bought from a shop.
ie a large cardboard box to hide in, pretend it is a car or a plane or a space ship.

In many parts of the world (and in Africa) children's parents don't have enough money for food and certainly are not able to buy the same toys that we have in Australia. If you had no toys and there were no shops to buy them from, what would you play with?
What could you use a stick for?
A bat ? A sword? A magic wand like Harry Potter? To draw in the dirt or sand?
What could you do with a piece of rope.
Skipping rope? Tug o war? Make it into a lasso and be a cowboy or cowgirl.
How could you use a piece of paper?
Draw on? Make a paper plane with it? Make a paper boat? Could it be a secret treasure map?

One hundred years ago young girls in Australia would dress up bottles and wooden pegs in pieces of material and paper and pretend they where dolls.

Jonas has a segment in the show that looks at the types of toys and games he played as a boy growing up in Ghana.

These boys were photographed in Goa in India in May 2005. What game do you think they were playing before they stopped to have their photo taken? Why was the plastic bucket on the boy's head and what was the yellow plastic in his pocket? Use your imagination, they certainly were using theirs.

2. Although Jonas' backdrop is a large map of Africa and he shows where Ghana is at the beginning of the show, it certainly would not hurt to remind students where Africa is on the globe in relation to Australia. Also compare the size of the two land masses. If it takes about three and a half hours to fly from Hobart to Cairns how long would it take to fly from Cape Town to Cairo?
If it takes about 48 hours to drive from Melbourne to Cairns without stopping, how long would it take to drive from Cape Town to Cairo if the same road and highway systems existed?

Please to NOT do any of these activities with your students before the performance.

The obvious thing to do with the class after the show is get them doing the String Sculptures and making their own Hum Spinner, both of which are quite simple.
Each student will need:
For the String Sculpture about 120cm of string for the preps and up to 150cm for adult size hands.
About the same length of string and a button (the bigger the better but an average size button will do) for the Hum Spinner.
If you are going to provide the materials, cheap wool is great and colourful.

Really for the Hum Spinner the string is simply threaded through the holes in the button and tied. To operate, after making the string twist together, the speed and the hum is created by pulling outwards with your hands and bringing your hands back together to allow the string to twist back together the opposite way. The secret to a successful high speed and good hum is to pull your hands back out again only once the button has wound the string up as tightly as it will go. By pulling separating your hand you are forcing the string to unravel and the momentum winds the string back up again the opposite way. You bring your hands back in towards each other to allow this to happen. Simply put, the action is moving your hands in and out.


Place string in left hand over thumb & little finger. With right hand pull string all the way down.		Grab string between index finger and thumb and pull string all the way down

N.B. Put your right hand in through the large hanging loop and grab with your little finger of your right hand the string as shown.	Grab the thumb string with your right thumb as shown. Then pull both through as shown in the next two photos.		Still holding the two strings with your right little finger and thumb, lift the strings up above the left hand.	Ensure that the three fingers of your left hand go through the three gaps between the four strings as they pass up, over and are dropped behind your left hand.

Grab and pull string as shown	The Parachute


Start with your string looped around your thumb and little finger of each hand as shown		With middle finger of the right hand pick up the string from the left hand as shown

With the middle finger on your left hand pick up the string from the base of the middle finger on your right hand.		Bring your thumbs over the top of the first string from the middle fingers and then under the next string (Second string round the middle finger)	Now with your teeth, grab the lower of the two strings around your thumb

N.B. Make sure that the remaining string that is around both thumbs stays there,	bring your thumbs down and under the string that is in your mouth. N.B. So now the string that was behind your thumbs in the previous photo is in front of them	Release the string from your mouth. Release the string from your little fingers	The Cup and Saucer.