Inspiration Africa! Alexandra Infants School Introduction day

INSPIRATION AFRICA!
Project 11
Alexandra Infants School
INTRODUCTION DAY 1

Amoafi began the introduction day at Alexandra Infants School with a warm-up story and game based around a song. This was followed by Viv showing the musical instruments from the African Worlds handling collection.

There were many instruments including gourd shakers, thumb pianos (mbira), talking drums and horns. These would be drawn by the children later in the day and then cut out as shapes to be printed on the introductory banner.

Next it was time to try on the African garments. First of all Viv showed a wooden circular block from Ghana, West Africa, and asked the chlidren what it looked like -

"The sun, a tyre, a biscuit"

Viv explained that it had a meaning which was -

"May the sun always shine on you".

The shapes can be block printed onto fabric as shown on the left and below. This is called an Adinkra or mourning cloth from Ghana. Adinkra means farewell and these cloths are worn at funerals.

To end the morning Amoafi taught the children a Ghanian song called Twi which was very similar to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. If you would like to read it please click on the link below and use your browser back button to return to this page.

TWI SONG

After lunch Tony demonstrated the screen printing process. He showed the screen, covered with polyester, the squeegee and the inks. First of all he cut out a paper shape and laid it on some cloth. The inks are spread onto the screen and pushed through the tiny holes in it by the squeegee. The area of cloth covered by the shape stays white whilst the rest of the cloth is coloured by the ink.

The children then returned to their desks to draw the African musical instruments and the sounds that they made. These shapes were then cut out ready to be screen printed.

The banner is a two-colour over-print with blends.

Pupils took it in turns to lay their shape on the cloth and pull the squeegee over the screen.

When they had finished their printing a few children were able to look at some of the introduction pages from other schools on the Inspiration Africa! website. This was shown on the computer in the corner of the classroom but soon they would all be looking at their own introductory day webpages on a projector.