Teacher’s Resources
by Jacki Rowley

Themes

This section can stand alone to examine some of the themes of the play or can be used to build up ideas for storytelling. For example, will the story have a moral? Will it include environmental issues?

Living in Harmony
In the play, arguments amongst the animals lead to problems with their environment. Try the following activities to think and talk about living in harmony and co-operating with each other. How easy was it to work together? How did it feel when somebody helped?
(Words in bold indicate that resources are included in the pack.)

• Print out four of the storyboards to make jigsaws. (The number of pieces would vary according to the age of the children.) Now mix up the pieces and share them out between four children. Each child must put together a jigsaw; younger children might have the picture in front of them. Players can give other children pieces but can not take pieces. The aim is for each child to have a finished jigsaw in front of them. You may ask that the activity is done in silence.

• Give out cards with animal prints to half the class and a picture of the animal to the other half. Children must find their pair without talking. Other class members can help children find each other by gesturing towards their partner if they have seen them. This can be made more difficult by sticking the pictures to the children’s backs. Others need to silently guide them to their partner.

• As an alternative, give out prints, pictures and words (tiger / elephant etc) so that children need to find two others. Or add a word to describe the animal e.g. mischievous for a monkey to make groups of four.

Once the children are in groups they make a picture of the animal using their bodies – who will be the ears, the body etc? Now as a group they try to make the animal move. Younger children may just decide how their animal moves and perform as individuals. Now the animals are shown to the class for them to guess.(See animal movement section.)

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Looking After the Earth
The children will be working on various creation myths, but no matter how people believe the earth came about, it is our responsibility to look after it. Discuss how the animals’ actions in the play affected the earth and then go on to talk about how people are treating the earth and what the consequences are.
Schools will no doubt deal extensively with issues of conservation, looking after the planet etc so these are a few ideas related to the play to discuss. They may also feed into storytelling ideas.

• Enlarge one of the storyboard pictures to show an ideal world. Ask the class to describe what it would be like to be in the picture – what would they hear, smell, taste, see. How would they feel? If the animals in the picture had thought / speech bubbles, what would, they be thinking or saying?

Now ask children to draw something on a small piece of paper that people have added which is spoiling the world. This could be as simple as rubbish being thrown in the countryside to factories belching out pollution, depending on age. Children are invited to stick their picture with blu-tack onto the original. How does it feel to be in the picture now? What are the animals thinking / saying? Discuss what could be done to help. Again, this could be as simple as putting rubbish in a bin or recycling, or more complicated issues such as alternative energy.

• Using the two pictures (before and after), ask the children to design a poster to encourage people to look after the earth.
• Endangered animals. Use books or the Internet to find out about African animals. Which of these are under threat and why? Make cards with the name and if needed a picture of an African animal. In pairs or groups, the children hold them up to their foreheads so they do not see them. They must ask their partners questions to find out what animal they are. As a class put the animals into groups – those that are endangered and which are not.

If an Interactive whiteboard is available, use animal pictures to sort on this.
www.unep-wcmc.org
www.wwf-uk.org (See kids pages)
www.greenpeace.org (Fun and games pages)

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Trust/Lies/Telling the Truth
In the play, Jackal is responsible for upsetting the balance through tricks and lies. The following trust games can lead to a discussion with the class about how it feels to trust or not trust someone, how important trust is and what happens when someone breaks your trust.

• Set out a short obstacle course. This could be designed by the class to represent the jungle. In pairs, one child must lead another who is blindfolded through the course. This could be through voice only, touch only, or a combination of the two.
• The class stand in a large space – they are trees in a jungle. One child is chosen as a hunter and another as the hunted. These could be named after specific animals. Both are blindfolded. As the children move around the space, the children who are trees must guide them by whispering “Tree” if they are about to bump into them or any object in the room. As the blindfolded children hear this, they have a sense of where the other is. The hunted must move away while the hunter tries to catch him/her.

Discuss how important it was in the game to be able to trust the trees – what would have happened if they tricked you?

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Rules

• Do we need rules and a ruler? Why / why not?
• What makes a good ruler? Was Leopard a good ruler? Was Jackal?
• Ask children to think of what their most important rule would be if they were ruler.
• What should happen if we break rules?
• Should Jackal have been forgiven? Why / why not? As a class, create a trial for Jackal in which everyone takes a part. What do you decide should happen to him? What would be a fair punishment?

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