South Hebron Hills, Thu 7.2.13, Morning
Purpose of the shift: Music activity in the Hashem el-Daraj preschool, together with Huda.
Topic of activity: Expressing feelings with music
Everyone is outside when we arrive, some are eating the pitot they brought from home. The children are happy to see us and almost all of them want to shake our hands, which is a good feeling.
There are about 30 children present. We go inside and the children sit on chairs around the mat which we brought some time ago. Huda knows the object of the activity since we decided it on at our staff meeting on our last visit. The activity focusses on the experiences of wind blowing at different strengths, storm winds, strong winds, soft winds and pleasant breezes. We being with the story "the Hat on her Head", a tale of a girl whose hat is blown off her head by the wind so that the feathers that decorate it fall off again and again until she learns to hold the hat and resist the wind. Huda tells the story and then the children try to act it out, choosing children for different roles. There is only partial success and maybe in future we will bring some dress-up clothes to make it more real.
Huda talks about different kinds of wind. We have brought several percussion instruments: various kinds of bell, maracas, a Chinese box, a tambourine, triangles etc.,
We handed out the instruments and asked the children to play different kinds of "music" according to the force of the wind. We let the children try the different kinds of instruments so that they can get some experience.
We sang a song about the wind playing with the waves of the sea, raising a storm and then quieting down. The recording is by Hanadi of Nazareth, Hebrew by Mira. We played the wind and the sheet in which a number of children hold a sheet and wave it up and down according to the velocity of the wind. We then play a game putting a ball on the sheet, the idea being not to let it drop, and then we play the same game using a small child. This always makes everyone laugh and is played with great enthusiasm.
Finally we demonstrate a professional xylophone and each child is allowed to play on it. This is always a moving experience – some of the children really open up and uninhibitedly try to enjoy the music.
Pictures of the activity (Mira) – Gan Huda art activity February 7th, 2013
https://picasaweb.google.com/113044451662544057850?authkey=Gv1sRgCNS_j8qy0sCOGA
“Staff” meeting:
Mohammed tried with a drill and screws that we brought to move some strips of wood to hang drawings on from the office to the main room. It didn't work so we will try to think of a different solution in the future. We chatted over tea and cookies and planned future sessions.