Children’s hospice primate day!
14th November 2009
Children’s hospice primate day
Siblings supported by Little Bridge House children’s hospice took part in a Yebo primate day this month. The day was supported by Adele Simms and Nicky Jones, siblings support workers at the hospice in Barnstable which is pa
rt of the charity ‘Children’s hospice South West.’
The children focused on work with communication and feelings where they took part in various creative activities. The day started with a look at primates from all over the world so the children could understand how primates behave and communicate, and the problems they face in the wild. This ranged from seeing how bonobos play and get happy around eachother, how some monkeys can have disabilities like children, and learning about how primates in the wild such as chimpanzees can have family members that die.
The children then took part in various activities. Supported by Yebo volunteers Katja Festuel and Helen Benwell they used a communication board which contained drawings of chimpanzees, Bonobos and Vervet monkeys in different situations with blank faces. On another board were velcro primate faces with different feelings and expressions drawn on such as confused, happy, sad, angry etc. The children thought about different situations the primates may be in such as ‘having no friends’ where they then matched up the faces to the drawings on the board.
The next activities involved creating primate puppets where the children chose a primate to make. This was great fun and lots of glue, paint and furry material came out to create the primate faces which were made up of gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees. The communication boards and colouring in pictures were created by Yebo artist Hellen Bersacola.
The end of the day was rounded off with computer games involving animal wildlife computer puzzles and a cheetah game which was supported by Alasdair Davies from the Great Primate Handshake. The children went away with Primate monkey calenders given to them by Yebo.
For more information on primate days please email lisa.davies@yeboyes.org
Art materials generously donated by PDA Crafts
