UPDATE: Thanks for the feedback everyone, we finally went with the Baby Rabbit Family – nice and neutral but still super cute! 🙂
As some of you may have seen over on the forum, I’m working on a very exciting new project for low income secondary schools in Tanzania.
I’m remixing a few of the themes and one of them that needs changing is the Family Lesson.
Monkeys as people is huge in Asian culture (think “The Monkey King” etc.) but obviously isn’t suitable for Africa.
So I need to choose a new animal, preferably African, for a new set of family songs!
Don’t worry, Baby Monkey isn’t going anywhere, this will just be one extra option, and should allow me to add in things like cousin, aunt, uncle as well as Grandfather.
So… what animal would you like the new family to be?
Answers in the comments please, and you might get you favourite animal chosen, or even win a CD!
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
I would like lions or may be elephants but I prefer lions because the word is shorter and easier to sing
Leopard or a turtle?
I think a lion would be a good choice for a new animal for G.E. lessons for Africa.
How about a giraffe – ‘twiga’ in Swahili. Giraffes eating twigs lol.And Air Tanzania used to have a picture of a giraffe on the tails of their planes…
Though I don’t know much about popular animals in Africa, how about elephants or hipos having and maintaining large families?
My first thoughts were the domestic animals, cow, sheep and pig. But they all have a different word for the baby animal, right? So, how about elephant or lion?
Hi,
thinking about Africa – one animal instantly came to my mind: a lion.
(Disney’s Lion King might be the cause of that 😉
How do you like this – maybe African people don’t think the same way though…
Hope you’ll get more ideas so you can choose 🙂
Greetings from Munich!
I think a cheetah family would be cool.
I won’t be original: baby lion 🙂
I think baby elephant would be a cute image! But if the name is too long…then how about baby zebra?
I would go with Lion. It has a strong resonance in African folk tales, and you could even introduce new vocabulary such as ‘a pride of lions’ from that.
How about the so loveable giraffes? You could do so much with descriptive adjectives with those fellows! Long legs, brown spots, big eyes, etc…and what pretty faces!
I would go for a hippo
it woould be fun to sing
“My name is Baby Hippo”
babies are little and hippoes aren’t even if they are babies;-)))
Hi everybody!
Most people like cats, do they? Lions are big cats. That’s why we adore the manners of both recognising the domestic animal in the wild one watching lions and the wild animal in the domestic playing with cats.
So I vote for lions, all the more the word ‘lion’ has the same number of sillables as the word ‘monkey’ what makes the remixing easier.
And to me it’s easier to imagine him standing on two feet or taking something with his paws than a hoofed animal 🙂
I would vote against lions… I think they may have a very different notion of a lion (i.e. a lion walked into our camp last week and we all hid so as not to be eaten)… best not.
I like the giraffe idea – vegetarians! haha
The cheetah or elephant is good too.
Meerkats? Badgers, like the honey badger is an awesome animal!
Maybe not for family, but something else – Africa has loads of crocodiles too.
😀 enjoy!
What popped into my mind as soon as I read your request was:
“Tony the tiger”…
Second choice “Ellie the elephant”!
Have a nice day! everyone!
Nena
I’d go with zebras. . . .same amount of syllables as monkey and not threatening in anyway.
I would think an elephant is the best choice for this topic. During a trip to Tanzania several years ago I learned that elephants and their family-behavior are highly respected animals.
Another good choice would be cows, since they are associated with wealth and are something desirable.
I am also in favour of giraffe
We associate elephants or lions with africa.
My choice would be elephants
using sizes big , small etc
I’d go for lions, it also has the same syllables as monkey so it’d fit well with the same melodies. And baby lions are very cute!!!
Anyway, I should also mention my kids (9 years) thought snakes would be ever so much cooler…:-)
Hello!
The lion Family (I loved the disney movie LE ROI LION)
I think I´d really like giraffes! We just came home from a trip to Africa……the giraffes are so graceful and peaceful and very family orientated!
Lets see what you decide Richard!! 🙂
Hello everyone,
I support the views of Anna. The Hippo family could look really cute. For an insert for the song introducing the hippo family, hip hip hip – hop hop hop could be used.
Before reading the post from Bea I was going to say lion but am now tempted to say Zebra!
A family of lions would be great!:)
I’m definitely in behalf of lions. A funny quotation popped up in my mind about vegetarians “I’m not avegeterian because I love animals.I’m a vegetarian because I hate plants.:-)”
My vote is for lions. With a clear difference between daddy lion and mummy lion: long hair, short hair. King and queen in the jungle.
I first thought elephant
Elephants are very sociable and organized as a family group, with “aunts”, “grandmas”…it’s a matriarchal society.It could be a sign of respect for African women (haven’t they got the Nobel prize for peace recently?).The main problem could be the word length, but if you can manage to solve this problem,,,elephant is really meaningful to me.Bye!
Lion would be great and eZy to remember
I like giraffes, because the elephants and lions are in India and also in the circus but giraffes… I vote GIRAFFES because I like them.
I vote GIRAFFE in first position, then elephant. Lions are just overused and can have a ‘violent’ reputation… Not different enough to catch your attention! In my opinion that is!
Hi everyone!
Some info:
In Tanzania live Bantu and Zulu people whose favourite animal is a hare or a a little antelope, the water chevrotain.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/mlb/mlb03.htm
For Masai people who also live there and own large herds of cattle lion is an enemy. Masai had a custom some time ago: to become a man a masai boy had to kill a lion with a spear.
http://maizebreak.com/regional/article/15/
So, maybe a hare?
Lion or giraffe !
Does it have to be an animal. Would you consider a (cute) monster or alien/extraterrestrial/robot family?
I love this guy’s stuff http://macmcrae.com/
Hi,
I agree that a lion is one of the first animals one thinks of when thinking of Africa but… as has been said before – they are feared and killed.
Similarly small animals such as the hare can be seen as “tricksters” – duping people, so I would vote for an antelope or a plain small cat!
Jennifer