Any ideas to celebrate child's South African heritage???

**Katiekoo** · 03-08-2011, 05:33 PM

One of my mindees has South African heritage, I'm looking for ideas of how to embrace this. I have heard of Heritage Day, which I've looked up but it seems all a bit mature if you know what I mean! Mindee is 1yr old so it would be good to find something fun - we did all about the types of animals from South Africa recently. Any ideas most welcome!

**sarah707** · 03-08-2011, 06:19 PM

You have already had some good ideas!

Have a look at activities for Kwanzaa - if you google it lots will come up. It's really a December celebration but the activities are fun all year round

**Katiekoo** · 04-08-2011, 05:16 PM

Thank you - most helpful!

**Zoomie** · 04-08-2011, 05:55 PM

Originally Posted by sarah707

You have already had some good ideas!

Have a look at activities for Kwanzaa - if you google it lots will come up. It's really a December celebration but the activities are fun all year round

I am South African, and I had to google this, cos I had never heard of it. (It is celebrated in the States).

Anyhow, you could look for info on how african people live. In the rural areas they sometimes make huts out of mud, with a thatch roof. Some tribes (the Sotho tribes sometimes paint them in bright bold colours and shapes. Other huts are made from sticks / branches, although of course there are brick and mortar houses too.

In urban areas houses are packed on top of each other. Google african township ...

African homemade toys are very resourceful. An example of this is a wire bicycle, which I often saw made from wire coat-hangers or other scrap pieces of wire / wood. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKqIh6D_0qA

The staple diet of southern African's is 'pap' or 'mielie-meal' which is made from ground maize (corn). It can be made like porridge (ie very runny), or thick so that you had almost break pieces and eat it like a piece of squashed up bread.

You could look up the meanings of the colours in the South African flag ?

Is the family white or african, and if they are africa, which tribe / language do they speak ? There are 11 official languages in South Africa.

Nelson Mandela is also a very famous South Africa, and they held the last Football world cup ....

Hopefully that will give you some ideas.

Ask if you have any queries.

**Katiekoo** · 04-08-2011, 06:05 PM

Wow thank you that is loads to go on! Brilliant! The Mothers family are white South African and many of their relatives live in Zimbabwe. I think I'll ask the mother too if she has any thoughts. I've got plenty to research here, thanks.

**Zoomie** · 04-08-2011, 08:31 PM

Originally Posted by Katiekoo

Wow thank you that is loads to go on! Brilliant! The Mothers family are white South African and many of their relatives live in Zimbabwe. I think I'll ask the mother too if she has any thoughts. I've got plenty to research here, thanks.

My husband is Zimbabwean and I lived there for 14 years.

**Katiekoo** · 04-08-2011, 09:09 PM

Brilliant - I know where to come when I get stuck then!

I knew there would be someone on here who could help! This forum has never let me down yet!

**chibault** · 04-08-2011, 11:08 PM

Hmm ok few ideas, some of these are general Africa inspired ones:

- make a melk tert, which is like a custard or milk tart, lots of recipes on the Internet, this is a popular dessert in SA.

- listen to ladysmith black mambazo, famous male accapella group.

- chocolate gloop - did you know over 70% of all the world's cacao pods come from Africa. Look at pics of the pods, farmers, and buy and taste cacao, it's a bit bitter tho.

- African pianos, bit sharp though, so need supervision

- 'where's jamela', lovely book for when child gets a little older, all about a s.African girl who moves house.

- decorate a Zulu sheild, can make it
of card board and do finger painting of the kind of colours of these sheilds.

- also if u go to the library, they can find you suitable books and you can order them through interlibrary loans, doesn't cost much.

HTH

,
becky x

-

**christine e** · 05-08-2011, 07:46 AM

Take a look at the Putumayo African Playground CD on amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Putumayo-Kid...2530209&sr=1-1

also worth looking at the Putumayo website for others

http://www.putumayo.com/putumayo_cds/kidscds

Cx

**Tinglesnark** · 05-08-2011, 09:24 AM

Dont forget the animals! You could do your own safari! Make pictures of wild animals and scatter them around the p;ace to "discover" with binoculars!

Google Victoria Falls, it's an amazing place - Maybe you could make your own Vic falls?

I used to live in Botswana and holiday in Zimbabwe

It is one of my most favourite places on Earth

Google the stories of the wild animals, the legends are so wonderful! The one that always stuck in my mind was the story of how the cheetah got her tear track markings...

these are fab stories to tell to little ones

**Maza** · 06-08-2011, 07:32 PM

South African music (even the National Anthem is very pretty), African fabrics in the role play area or dressing up area, have a braai and buy some South African meats, look around the supermarket and you'll be suprised by the amount of fruit and veg from SA. Look at traditional SA dress, talk about the climate, do a beach small world area, make some traditional jewellry or clay pots, find SA on a map or globe. Are the family Afrikaans speaking? If so you could learn some key words. Look up examples of art - 3D as well as 2D. Beading. Make a little book of indigenous plants/flowers/trees/animals etc. Look at pictures of Table Mountain. You can buy/borrow 'S is for South Africa' by Beverly Naidooand Prodeepta Das.

My daughter is half South African and I just realised I don't do any of this with her - apart from braais!

Have a nice glass of South African red wine to get you in the mood!