First Day at Gan Illanot!

As part of our Israel experiences every student is asked to take part in a volunteer project somewhere around jerusalem. I had heard that HUC had a Gan (directly translates to kindergarden but is for ages 3-6) on it's campus! I have been excited about working there for months. So as soon as I got to Israel, I wasted no time and popped in the HUC head of student life's office to see how to make this happen. Monday I had a meeting with the director of the school and Tuesday I had my first day! 

 The Gan is called "Illanot" meaning sprouts or baby plants. I am working in a class of six year olds which at first felt older than what I was expecting but then I realized how wonderful of an opportunity this is because they developmentally able to speak Hebrew pretty clearly and also able to understand that they need to talk slowly in order for me to understand them. Pretty quickly I made a few English speaking buddies who enjoyed being my "teacher" to translate for me. However I was pleased with how much I was able to understand, and talk to the kids on day 1. Most of our conversations were simple. About names, ages, colors etc. yet, I felt like I was talking and connecting pretty much for the entirety of the two and a half hours I was there. 

One of the highlights of my afternoon there was that that afternoon a representative of the Teva museum came and brought some reptiles with her (just like TBSCC!) I learned the word for snake in Hebrew (Nahash!) and kids got to hold a snake and touch a very large snake skin. She taught us a lot about snakes and then we got to pretend to be one. One of the teachers "hid" and then the group held on to a rope and slithered quietly down the hallway outside on to the playground where we found the teacher who was being the "mouse" we then circled around the teacher many times as to simulate a boa constrictor and then pretend to eat the teacher! It was a neat exercise that helped kids learn about how snakes eat in a kinesthetic way, yet also just felt very non-american to me. I am still learning this schools teaching philosophy and I am so excited to learn though out the year how their philosophy and values are displayed throughout their everyday teaching. So excited to go back this Tuesday!