Home sweet home Teaching notes and pupil worksheets for primary classroom activities

Transcription

1 Home sweet home Teaching notes and pupil worksheets for primary classroom activities Lesson plan for 7- to 11-year-olds Learning objectives These materials will help pupils to: consider the importance and meaning of home think positively about different types of home and understand the link between the environment and the resources available to make suitable homes reflect on the practical and emotional elements that make a home explore ways in which conflict has damaged people s relationship with their home in some parts of the world understand how people are being helped to rebuild their homes and lives in difficult situations think about what they could do to support people recovering from conflict. Materials/preparation This pack contains pupil worksheets, which can be copied and distributed to the class. Please note that worksheets 1, 2 and 5 contain photo images, which work best if they are photocopied from colour printouts or printed directly in black and white. Activity 1 Aim: to consider the importance of a home. Hand out Worksheet 1 and ask pupils to identify which creature lives in which home by drawing lines to match the creature with its home. You can explain: Harvest mice weave grasses to build their special round nests. When they have babies, they build their nests on plant stems high above the ground, to keep them safe from other animals. Termites are insects that build very special homes made from mud and chewed wood, held together with saliva and poo! Termite nests provide a safe living space and allow termites to store water and food. Deep inside the nests, there are special chambers where the eggs and baby termites are kept safe. Some termite mounds can be up to nine metres high taller than a house! Blackbirds are a common garden bird, but did you know that blackbird couples stay together all their lives? The female birds build the nests, which can take up to two weeks to finish, in trees or shrubs. Blackbird nests are cup-shaped, to stop the eggs falling out, and are made out of grass, straw and twigs. The mother blackbird lines her nests with mud and soft grass to keep it warm and comfortable.

2 Rabbits live in special underground homes called burrows. Often, a number of burrows join together via underground passages to form a large rabbit warren, where many rabbits live together. Humans are the most adaptable and inventive species on Earth, meaning that they are very good at finding ways to live in all sorts of different places and conditions. This means that human houses can look very different, depending on where people live and the sort of materials they have available to build their homes. Answers: Images: Wikimedia Commons Activity 2 Aim: to think positively about different types of home. Ask pupils to look at the images on Worksheet 2, which depict different homes from around the world. It is common for children to focus on difference, so challenge pupils to focus on what the homes have in common. Each home demonstrates people s ability to be inventive and to build homes out of available material, and each one is welladapted to local conditions. Explain: The walls of these homes in South Sudan are made from mud bricks and the roofs are thatched with strong reeds. These materials are easy to get hold of, and they are also sustainable (meaning that they don t easily run out and they don t harm the environment). Wood is the main building block for this house in Colombia, which is open and airy to keep the house cool in the hot and humid climate. It rains a lot in this area, so the house is raised on short wooden legs, to allow rainwater to flow under the house without damaging the building. This house in Bangladesh is built from bamboo and other plant materials. These materials are sustainable and local but just as importantly, they are strong. Bangladesh is prone to storms and flooding, so this home is designed to be able to withstand extreme weather. Ask pupils to locate the countries where these houses belong on a map, and to locate their own country. Ask them to define what a home is, reflecting on the different qualities of these houses and on their own experience of home. This house in Haiti is built from bricks and it is very strong. In 2010, a powerful earthquake hit Haiti and the force of the earthquake made many houses collapse, killing hundreds of thousands of people. This house has been very carefully built to try to make sure that it will stay standing if another earthquake happens, keeping the people who live there safe.

3 Activity 3 Aim: to reflect on the practical and emotional elements that make a home. Ask pupils to think about the main rooms of a house and identify four important rooms (eg kitchen, bathroom, sitting room, bedroom). What is the main function of each room? Ask pupils to choose three essential items for each room of the house on Worksheet 3. They should draw, write or stick cut-out images of their essential items in each room of the house (you could provide some home catalogues for collage). Discuss: What feelings are important in a home? Ask them to select the positive emotions that they like to feel at home, by putting a tick or a smiley face in the table on Worksheet 3. Ask them to think about the people who live in their home, and how these people make a difference to the feeling of a home. Remind pupils that while families are all different, they are all special, and encourage the pupils to think about and celebrate the special things about their own particular family. Activity 4 Aim: to reflect further on the practical and emotional elements that make a home. Share Worksheet 4 and ask pupils to arrange the words at the bottom of the page around the feeling that they represent. For instance, a sofa makes us feel cosy, a door makes us feel safe, windows make us feel happy and baths make us feel healthy. Encourage pupils to understand water and sanitation items (toilets, taps, wash basins) as health issues, and the structural things (roof, walls, door) as safety issues. Discuss: Is there anything that happy homes need that you can t see? (Answers might include things like love, peace and laughter.) Activity 5 Aim: to explore ways in which conflict has damaged people s relationship with their home in some parts of the world and to understand how people are being helped to rebuild their homes and lives in difficult situations. Share Worksheet 5 and encourage pupils to match the people with their country by following the wiggly lines. The speech bubbles on the sheet contain information about three young people who are living in post-conflict situations. Each one describes their home and what they like about it. There is also a blank bubble for pupils to add their reflections about their own homes. Notes Rojan, Edile and Veyola all live in countries that have recently been affected by conflict. Their families have all been displaced in the recent past, and have had to rebuild their lives and homes. You can download the Home Sweet Home Powerpoint Presentation, which contains images of these young people, from christianaid.org.uk/ learn Rojan lives in Iraq. Pupils may well be aware that there has been recent conflict in Iraq, but they might not realise that the north of the country is now a relatively peaceful and stable place.

4 Rojan s family are rebuilding their lives in the village of Zanan Bchuk, which was destroyed many times during the war. Christian Aid s partners have helped people living there to build a reservoir, which has changed this dry, damaged land into a green and beautiful place, full of life and hope. Edile lives in Colombia. There has been lots of fighting in parts of Colombia, and many people have been forced to leave their land. Edile s father was killed and his family had to flee their home, living rough in the mountains for many months. He and his grandmother now live in a special safe area where people are protected and no weapons are allowed. Edile feels very happy to be living somewhere safe, surrounded by friends. Edile is being supported by Christian Aid s partners, who make sure the people in this area are out of harm s way. Veyola lives in South Sudan. Her family fled their homeland years ago, to escape the fighting that tore this area apart and start a new life in the city but they have recently returned home to be among their own people. The journey home was very dangerous; many people were robbed and lost all their belongings. When Veyola s family got back home, they found that there was nothing there at all, just scrubland. Christian Aid s partner HARD has been helping people here to get hold of the practical things they need to survive, such as water cans, soap, cooking pots and plastic sheets. HARD has also been providing money to help them start building strong, safe houses. Veyola s family are very happy to be home. All of these young people have been deeply affected by conflict, and are now taking on the challenge of rebuilding their homes and their lives. Ask pupils to think about these stories in relation to what they have learned about homes. Discuss: What challenges have these young people faced? How might that make them feel? Why are homes so important? What would people need to build a home from scratch? What do all these people have in common with us? You can watch a short film about Edile, entitled A Safe Place to Live, which is available from christianaid.org.uk/learn-caw-2014-primary Activity 6 Aim: to think about what pupils could do to support people recovering from conflict Ask pupils to work out how much a new house costs in South Sudan, by adding up all the figures on Worksheet 6. Does anything surprise them about this figure? You could note that the average house in Britain costs around 240,000! (You can adjust this figure to suit your local context: Northern Ireland: 131,000; Scotland: 153,000; Wales: 150,000; Greater London: 476,000.) Do encourage them to think again about what a home means and what it represents, and about the things that all homes have in common. Ask pupils to cut out and make their houses in 3D. You could arrange the houses together to form a village. The Home Sweet Home assembly is available from christianaid.org.uk/learn pupils could deliver this assembly to the rest of the school to consolidate their learning about homes and conflict. If your school is doing any fundraising for Christian Aid Week, you could think about how much you might be able to raise: could you help to build a house? There is a fundraising pack to help pupils get involved in or lead any fundraising that your school might choose to undertake. You can download this pack from christianaid.org.uk/learn-caw-2014-primary

5 Worksheet 1 Draw a line to match the creature with its home. Images: Wikimedia Commons Christian Aid December J1990

6 Worksheet 2 What do you think these homes have in common? Christian-Aid/Matt Gonzalez-Noda Alok, South Sudan Christian Aid/Andrew Testa/Panos Department of Choco, Colombia Gabura Island, Bangladesh Christian Aid/Nicola Morgan Christian Aid/Melanie Smith Belladère, Haiti Choose the correct word from the list below to complete this famous saying: What is a home? A home is Home is where the is. food heart water television family warmth roof sofa Christian Aid December J1990

7 Worksheet 3 When I m at home, I want to feel: Who lives in YOUR home? You can draw them here: Cosy Cold Frightened Healthy Safe Happy Sad Unwell Christian Aid December J1990

8 Worksheet 4 Happy Cosy HOME Healthy Safe Cut out the words below and think about whether these things make you cosy, safe, healthy or happy then place them in the correct place on the diagram above. Windows Wash basins TV Doors Bath/shower Walls Fridge Toilet Cooker Computer Sofa Curtains Lights Bed Family Radiators Roof Food Taps Blankets/duvet Christian Aid December J1990

9 Worksheet 5 Follow the lines to work out where these people live: Edile Veyola Rojan You South Sudan Britain Colombia Iraq Veyola lives in... Veyola is aged 11 and she loves drawing pictures and playing with her friends but one day she wants to run her country! Her father says he is very proud of her and her sisters, and explains how important their home is to them: It is safe here. There is freedom. We can sit as a group and talk, and take tea together. We love our land, he says. Edile lives in... Edile is aged nine. He likes playing football with his friends. He loves his home and says: I am very happy here, it is a lot of fun. I want the environment to be healthy, so that all children who live in this area grow well. Rojan lives in... Rojan is aged 15. She likes to keep her home neat and clean. Her name means sunrise, which reflects her cheerful nature. She loves the village where she lives: I feel so happy here because it is so open, it is so free, there is so much space. I live in... Write something about your home here: Christian Aid December J1990

10 Worksheet 6: Pop-up model of a home in South Sudan Strong window 7 fold Bricks 34 Poles (to hold up roof) 27 fold Important items for the house 11 Roof 196 fold What is the total cost of a new house in South Sudan? Strong door 14 glue fold

11 glue glue glue glue Christian Aid December J1991