On Saturday, 30 April, CBN held its second workshop in Stanford, entitled Cats.
Word had got out about the CBN workshops, and 32 children arrived instead of the pre-arranged 24. The wonderful facilitators, Janine van Rooy (Blaq Pearl) and Didi Didlof took these increased numbers in their stride and soon had the children singing a song about lions with Janine teaching them the lyrics while Didi accompanied on violin.
Lesley Beake started off proceedings by reading a book, which was donated by Panthera Africa entitled When Lion was King. The children listened quietly and learnt about a lion that was in a slump but managed to get out of it with a change in attitude. They also shared other stories and were introduced to the ideas behind CBN and our aim to make children able to fly through books. They were shown how books can inform, amuse, entertain and also give information.
Next the children watched a short video clip about Richard Turere, a Massai boy, who managed to invent a light display system that deterred lions from eating his family’s livestock and consequently saved many lions’ lives. Then it was time for another story, Little Lion, about a father who brings back a lion or a dog, the reader is never quite sure which. This story is based on the first line of one of South Africa’s oldest stories that is recorded in the Bleek and Lloyd archive of San stories from the Northern Cape.
After lunch, the children divided into groups. One group wrote and learnt a song, the second played a reading board game, and the third drew lions. There was also a quiet reading session where the children could pick a book and read quietly.
The children said they had a lot of fun. We offered the children the option of a Saturday morning book club event once a month, to which all of them eagerly agreed to join. At these events, we will continue with the big cat activities until we have cmpleted this theme.
A big thank you to following people:
The Butterfly Foundation for offering their venue. Adelise Booysen for the delicious food. Community members who attended and helped monitor play sessions. Ellen Osman for collating permissions forms and dealing with the registers and name badges.
