The San and the KhoiKhoi

The San and the KhoiKhoi section of All About South Africa (South African History) would fit into Tapestry of Grace Y1.

Before I started with Tapestry of Grace, a friend and I did some homeschool unit studies on South Africa with our 6 children. Now that I am using TOG, I would do one of two things. First, South Africa has 40 weeks in their school year, while TOG only does 36, so I could take a week away from TOG here and there and add in a week of SA History. But if my year is too busy, I would just take the time to read the section in All About South Africa and add one of the books to read, if I have it.

Ideas to Incorporate:

• Read the section on San and the KhoiKhoi
• Learn about nomads.
• When reading the sections on KhoiKhoi Houses, The Strandlopers, Hottentots Holland Mountains and The KhoiKhoi are dispossessed, locate the areas referred to and mark one of them on a map of South Africa with a picture of a KhoiKhoi hunter.
• Read creation account from Genesis and make a creation wheel.
• Re-create a miniature model of a Khoi home with plaster of paris and brown paint.
• Learn about and practice rock art.
• Study about Ostrich.
• Have ostrich steaks or game for dinner.  Make a fire and sit around it and eat.
• Make a San hut with long grass.
• Locate the Kalahari on the South African map and mark it with a picture of a praying mantis. 
• Study the praying mantis.
• Make a reed flute

Links:

South Africa History Online - Arrival of KhoiKhoi

Creating Your Own Rock Art

The Khoi Hut

Creation Wheel
Bushmen
San Bushmen
Praying Mantis

Field Trips:

Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History (Gauteng)

The National Cultural History Museum explores South Africa’s cultural diversity in various permanent and temporary exhibitions. Exhibitions include rock paintings and engravings of the San people; thousand year old Iron Age figurines from Schroda in the Limpopo Province (described as "the best known artifacts indicating ritual behaviour in the Early Iron Age"); the Art Gallery presents an overview of South African culture through time, using cultural objects, crafts, sculpture and paintings and an exhibition on Marabastad is a true example of a cosmopolitan and fully integrated rainbow nation before apartheid. Visit our new shop. 

Books to look for: 
I have had some success in finding SA books by watching on bidorbuy.co.za

The Far-away Valley by Jenny Seed

Men of Men by Candy Malherbe

These Small People by Candy Malherbe

The New Fire by Jenny Seed

The Cave by Peter Slingsby
Nama Kwa’s Garden by Mary Clanahan

Come Over to my House by Theo Leisig