Welcome to the Rock!
The Rock is local slang for Jamaica, a stunning island country in the Caribbean Sea. It’s got mountains and beautiful beaches, plus loads of history and culture to learn about.
Jamaica is known for a lot of amazing things. The fastest man in the world comes from Jamaica. It’s the island that invented reggae and dancehall music. There’s even a Jamaican bobsled team which made it to the Winter Olympics - even though there’s no snow in Jamaica!
Oh, and the James Bond books were written there. Not bad…
This workbook is all about the music, language and history of Jamaica. There’s even a pushkart exercise!
This workbook has 6 different activities.
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Before you start…
You’ll need some printed worksheets to complete this workbook. Start by clicking the button below and printing out the sheets.
Get a grown up to help you if you need it.
MAKE SURE TO CHECK ‘FIT TO PAGE’ WHEN YOU PRINT
When you’ve printed out the worksheets and got a pen or pencil, then scroll down to the begin the activities.
Here’s a bigger map…
You can click on the purple circles to learn more - it might help you later!
Activity 1: First Questions
There are lots of interesting things to learn about Jamaica! Can you answer the questions in this quiz?
Remember, try not to guess but actually do some research to find out the answers - ask your parents, or look on the Internet to find the answers!
Famous Jamaicans
Can you complete the names of these 3 famous Jamaicans? You’ll need to do some research…
Bob Marley
Bob Marley was a singer and songwriter, and maybe the most famous Jamaican ever. He played a type of music called reggae (although he mixed in other styles too), which is a relaxed type of music typical of the Caribbean.
Marley was a Rastafari, which is a religion invented in Jamaica. Rastafari believe in a God called Jah and that African people outside Africa should eventually move back there.
Rastafaris are also called Rastas, and often wear their hair in dreadlocks and wear rastacaps - hats in the Rastafarian colours of green, gold, red and black.
The BBC has a TV programme called Rastamouse, about a Rastafari mouse. Some people think it’s too extreme, but lots of other people love it - what do you think?
Activity 2: Rebus Puzzle
The answers to this puzzle are all Bob Marley song names. Use the symbols and follow the instructions to find out 4 song names.
You can use the spaces on page 3 of your workbook to write down the answers. Remember to look for the word with the star - that’s what goes in the Answer Grid ⭐.
Younger kids might need some help from a grown up for this puzzle - it can be a little tricky!
Not sure how a Rebus puzzle works?
Click the button on the right
Activity 3: Let’s hunt for treasure!
Jamaica is an island in the Caribbean. There was a time when there were lots of pirates living and working in the Caribbean. Jamaica was a popular destination for pirates, particularly Port Royal, near Kingston.
Pirates would attack trade ships and steal the goods on their ships. There were lots of trade ships travelling between the Americas and Europe, so this was a good way to make money, although it was illegal. Pirates in the Caribbean were also called buccaneers.
There’s a rumour that some pirates buried their treasure to keep it safe. That probably didn’t happen very often - pirates usually wanted to spend their money. Plus, lots of the ‘treasure’ they stole wasn’t coins - it was things like food, water, fabric or cocoa. These things would go bad if you buried them!
Still, people keep looking for buried treasure in the Caribbean - and we’re going to do the same!
Pirate Bill buried his treasure somewhere on the island of Jamaica - but he’s forgotten where.
Luckily, he has a set of instructions to follow. Can you follow the instructions below, using the map of page 4 of your workbook?
Try to get to the treasure before he does!
You’ll find a star somewhere along the way ⭐
Activity 4: Pushcart Derby!
Every year lots of Jamaicans make pushcarts to race against each other. A pushcart is usually made of wood and fits one to two persons. It doesn’t have an engine and instead moves forward by people pushing it.
Every August in Jamaica homemade carts take part in races. The carts have been clocked at up to 60 miles per hour on a downhill homestretch.
Above is a homemade pushcart which will compete in the pushcart derby. You can click on it to make it bigger.
Below, find the box with all the parts that were used to build this cart. The answer is the name that’s in the box ⭐.
Activity 5: A History of Jamaica
We say ‘a history’ instead of ‘the history’ because there are lots of different stories and ways of telling them about Jamaica. This is just one of them.
There are words missing from the story below. On page 5 of your worksheets, you’ll find the missing words. Can you fill them in on page 5 to make the story make sense? One of the gaps has a star - the word that fits there is the answer for the Answer Grid ⭐.
The first people to live in Jamaica were the Taino people, also called (1) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . They called the land Xaymaca, which means “land of wood and (2) _ _ _ _ _ ”.
These people are cutting sugar cane
In 1494 the first person from Europe came to Jamaica. Christopher Columbus was an (3) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ explorer who worked for the Spanish King. The European explorers liked Jamaica, because it was warm and lots of different things could grow there, which they couldn’t grow in Europe, like sugar.
After this Jamaica was controlled by Spain, which was the most powerful country in the (4) _ _ _ _ _ at the time. The Spanish weren’t kind to the Arawak people. Lots of them got killed and others got (5) _ _ _ _ and died. There are not many Arawak people left now.
The Spanish wanted to make money by growing and selling sugar and cotton. They brought in people from (6) _ _ _ _ _ _ to work in Jamaica. These people were kidnapped and brought to Jamaica where they were made to work without being paid. This was called (7) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .
This is a drawing of Trealawney where there was a big Maroon settlement, a bit like Accompong
By 1655 the Spanish had lost a lot of their power and the British took over control over Jamaica. Before the Spanish left the island they freed all their slaves. The freed slaves moved into the (8) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , because they were worried the British would make them continue to work. These groups of slaves were called (9) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , which comes from the Spanish word for wild. They lived in the mountains for years. Many Maroon towns still exist today, like Accompong.
The British had also a lot of slaves and gave them very difficult jobs on the sugar (10) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . They also brought in slaves from Asia. Eventually people decided that it was not right to make people slaves and they stopped it in (11) _ _ _ _ . Jamaica continued to be owned by Britain until 1962 when the country finally belonged to the Jamaicans. This was called (12) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .
In the period before independence in the 1950s and 1960s lots of Jamaican people moved to Britain. Lots of them moved to (13) _ _ _ _ _ _ , so now there is a big Jamaican community there.
Nowadays lots of Jamaican people have great- (14) _ _ _ _ _ -grandparents who were from different parts of Africa, because they came as slaves. In Jamaica there is a lot of African (15) _ _ _ _ _ and dancing, which has slowly become more Jamaican. All these people from different countries have made Jamaica their home. All the different cultures mix together in Jamaican celebrations and parties. One example is the festival of Junkanoo which happens on (16) _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ ‘_ Day and (17) _ _ _ _ _ _ Day.
Activity 6: Jamaican Patois
The official language in Jamaica is English. But, when you have a conversation with someone from Jamaica you will notice that you will understand most of it but some of it you don’t.
That’s because they speak another language, called Jamaican Patois. Patois is very close to English and shares a lot of words. But some words come from other languages. When African people were brought to Jamaica as slaves they mixed up English with their own African languages. There are loads of different African languages, so different words from different languages got put into Jamaican Patois.
