South Hebron Hills

We coordinated with Intisar, the kindergarten teacher that we would visit the kindergarten and help to organize activities.

The kindergarten is at the end of the village, next to the clinic. Not next to or on the way to the school. The parents (or siblings) have to come there especially to bring the children. The building is pleasant to see and is big enough to contain many children and games. The equipment only contains small chairs for the children. In the yard are equipment for games and a sand box.

There are 16 children, Intisar and two women (it seems of the family, and her baby.

The proposed  activities include hand coloring, and sand and leaf pasting , as well as a story we have brought.

Intisar suggests carrying out the activity in the hallway, on the floor. We put the children in groups of four, divided bristol pages, and finger colors. We demonstrated the work. Some children had trouble dipping their fingers in color. Glue was something new. Intisar recorded the children's names on the paintings. In the end, Intisar gathered the children in another room and read from the book which we had brought - "Hot corn." The children were fascinated. Before finishing we improvised a way to hang the paintings between two windows - so there is already a first decoration in the garden!

This is the first activity. It seems that no similar activities have been carried out in the past, and the type and manner of such activities are also new to Intisar herself. Reading a story also looked like something that had never happened before. We left some equipment (sheets, crystals, glue, finger paints, pastel colors, plasticine dough). We also left the book - the first and only book, in the meantime. Let's hope it does not get lost, and that many others will be added.

Intisar has prepared a list of essential equipment, which includes tables, wardrobe (or cabinets), shelves, mat. Of course you need additional kindergarden equipment - colors, pages, toys, pencils, books (in Arabic), and much more. We brought, as a start, a kitchenette corner for a game. In the future we will  see how it goes. It would be good to add old cooking utensils - you can bring it to this corner.

We will try to involve the villagers to help build the kindergarden. It should not just be  Intisar and ourselves . In particular, we should not be perceived as the rich aunts who bring all that is missing. It is also worth introducing Intisar to Huda (from Haham-el-Daraj), with whom we worked quite a bit. Intisar can learn from her how to organize the day of studies, the garden, activities, etc. It will also be a  compliment to  Huda.