Many learners and families have been affected by the closure of schools and universities due to the Covid-19 outbreak and lockdown.
Although some schools have prepared homeschooling kits for parents to teach their children at home, other less fortunate schoolchildren have been left idling at home with nothing to do during this time – often missing out on valuable time in the school year.
Meanwhile, mom of one and art facilitator Lonwabo Jobodwana (35) from Phakamisa in the Eastern Cape created the Funda Nathi Lockdown set for pre-primary learners.
The kit consists of three A4 posters with alphabets in the nine official languages, a colour-in book with activities and nursery rhymes, wax crayons and blank paper.
“In my community, I learnt that many pre-school learners stay with their grandparents. They do not have reading books, toys or any learning materials outside of school and they end up always being told to play outside, where it’s currently unsafe,” she says.
With the lockdown regulations and restricted movement, some children have nothing to do. Lonwabo created the kits for parents to easily assist in teaching a child outside of school.“The homeschooling set is especially designed to promote mother-tongue pride with the African child in mind, especially those in rural areas and township pre-schools.
The posters are to remind the parents that teaching is not only the responsibility of an educator, but that homeschooling needs to be a “daily task”.
Lonwabo works with early childhood development educators who have assisted her in creating a list of schools to donate the sets to. However, anyone can donate to any school of their choice.
“The Funda Nathi Lockdown set can be bought by anyone for R150. People can also buy kits for us to donate to the list of schools. We have distributed to 32 households so far. It’s amazing what giving a child a piece of paper and crayon can do. It keeps them busy for hours,” Lonwabo says.
Prior to lockdown, Lonwabo started an art class and online reading classes for preschool learners on www.fundanathi.co.za
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