South Hebron Hills, Thu 7.3.13, Morning
Purpose of the shift: Activity in the Hashem el-Daraj preschool, together with Huda.
Topic of activity: Winter season
When we arrived, the children were sitting in a circle on chairs or on a floor mat that we brought on a previous visit. 25 children were present. Huda wasn’t feeling well but was able to participate. Perhaps because she wasn’t feeling well, she didn’t want to read the story but instead told it. We brought hats as part of the performance of the story “The hat of Rasha” that tells the story of girl who had the feathers on her hat blown off by the wind until she learned to hang on tightly to her hat and was able to prevent the last feather from being blown off. We also brought a couple of percussion instruments with us in order to reinforce the children who played the role of the wind. We chose children to play the different roles in the story but for some reason, it was hard to get them to enter into the spirit of the story – perhaps because Huda wasn’t feeling well. It seems worthwhile to encourage the children to act out a variety parts of the stories, not just characters from the real world.
The next ‘winter’ activity took place around the tables. It was to cut out and color small pictures that typified aspects of winter and then paste them onto a larger picture of winter that was missing some of the details of winter, such as umbrellas. Each child received a page with the larger picture and a page with the elements that needed to be cut out. There were children who chose suitable smaller pictures and pasted them on the larger picture taking into account the direction they pasted the pictures and what colors to use. They worked beautifully and with enthusiasm. Other children pasted the smaller pictures without looking at the larger picture. Some children continue to be apathetic and need to be prodded and helped to continue working. Huda decided the children should take their work home so that their parents can see what they do in preschool.
Pictures of the activity (Judy – Gan Huda art activity March 7th, 2013
https://picasaweb.google.com/113044451662544057850?authkey=Gv1sRgCNS_j8qy0sCOGA
“Staff” meeting:
Mohamed energetically drilled a series of three holes in two walls in order to put up three long strings from which to hang the children’s artwork. This was an important task because until now there was no way to hang up the children’s work. We sat and talked while drinking tea and eating cookies – we talked about the activityplanned for our visit in two weeks and demonstrated its construction. Huda took responsibility for preparing the materials needed for the activity.