Sola led the day with a name game where name sounds were invented, eg.
Chris - biting apple, Sarah - ssssnake, Thomas - steam train.

Tony then introduced Inspiration Africa! - inspiration means excitement or being interested in something. Viv then showed the musical instruments from the Horniman Museum. These instruments are part of the African Worlds handling collection and they were passed around to be played individually and in groups.

Sola encouraged the pupils to think of words that expressed music and they also wrote an acrostic poem. Read these by clicking on the button below.

There were also African garments for the pupils to dress up in. One of the teachers had also brought in a dress from West Africa that she had bought when she was an air hostess.

Whilst the children were dressed up Sola gave them parts and told the story of "How music came to the world". This story comes from the Yoruba people of Nigeria. It is about a talented young man who was the drummer for his village and whose family name is prefixed by Ayan (which means he comes from a drumming family). The story ended with the whole class playing together.

After break the pupils drew the musical instruments and representations of the sounds that they made. Hands were waved to form the shapes made by the instruments before they were drawn.

Next it was time to look at the Inspiration Africa! website on the six computers in the classroom. The pupils looked at the introduction days from previous projects and saw what they would be doing after lunch - screen printing with Tony.

Tony started the session with a demonstration of the screen printing process and then the pupils worked from their drawings simplifying and enlarging them. They were then cut out and the shapes placed on the fabric to create their banner. Raffia and wool were also used to create patterns that represented the sounds from the instruments.

The screens were placed over the images and pupils painted freely through the screen. The banner was printed twice with the first print using cold colours and the second print using warm colours. At the end of the session the class posed in front of their fantastic banner.