Third Grade Exploring West African Stone Passing Games

Obwisana

Obwisana sa nana

Obwisana sa

Obwisana sa nana

Obwisana sa.

The rock has crushed my hand, grandma

The rock has crushed my hand.

The rock has crushed my hand, grandma,

The rock has crushed my hand.

Third graders started off the year learning to play a Ghanaian stone passing game called Obwisana.  The game features a singing part and an ostinato (a continuous rhythmic part) that accompanies that song using stones (or in our case, shaker eggs). As the song speeds up, the ostinato also speeds up, doubling over time. 

 We started by learning just the song first and keeping a steady beat on different parts of our bodies, then we practiced simply passing the "stones" slowly on the steady beat. Once students felt comfortable with the passing pattern with the ostinato, we tried speeding it up. Here is n example at a moderate speed: