Acting out stories is not only a great way to involve children with the characters, but it is also true to these stories’ origins as part of oral folk traditions. Because the tales tend to be short, with plenty of action and humor, featuring colorful animal characters, they work well as skits. You can have children make their own animal masks out of construction paper or paper plates to help bring these legendary characters to life.
Send your students on a pretend trip to Africa. Older children can locate the origins of the tricksters on a world map, but even younger children will enjoy seeing pictures of these places. Have them research or watch videos about West Africa and imagine a trip there. They can keep an imaginary travel diary or send pretend postcards. You can have the students imagine running into Eshu in the airport, for example, and tell or write about one of the tricksters from the stories disrupting their trip.
Tricksters exist all over the world, from Coyote of the American Southwest to Puss in Boots in Europe. Have children read or listen to different stories, depending on their reading level, and try to spot the similarities. Then engage their critical thinking with questions like, “What would happen if Coyote and Anansi met? Who could out-trick the other?” They could retell the stories with switched trickster heroes, or role-play a meeting between these cross-cultural characters.
A fun way to start a unit on the trickster tales or to finish the unit in a festive way would be to engage in a little trickery of your own. Set up a scavenger hunt in the classroom, where students have to figure out puzzles to find clues they can follow to a reward, such as a colorful pencil. Older students can create their own puzzles for their classmates. Students could also engage in riddle contests, or play games of bluffing and misdirection, like Simon Says or Giggling Gertie.