Organised Playdates

In Hebrew it's called Bayit Me'arayach which translates as hosting home. It's actually a lovely idea. The class teacher, usually in Kindergarten or the first two years of school, arranges the class into 5 or 6 sets of 5 or 6 children. One parent from each group agrees to host the others for a playdate one day after school.

Done at the beginning of the year, it's a way for the children to get to know a few children a bit better and for the mothers to get together with at least four other mums. I think they may do it a few times during the year with different children hosting. I'm not sure about that but I'll let you know.

Our organised playdates had a theme. The children had been learning about the Book of Genesis and we had a Genesis Party last Friday morning (another post). At the playdates, each group was given a day of the creation to make into a display for the party.

Our day was Day Five. On the fifth day God created the fish and the birds. We were given a plastic display board and walked it home to M's house.

We cut out fish and the children painted them.

Birds were a little more complicated but M found a box of feathers and we made do.

Then two of the children painted the display board with blue for the sky and a slightly more greeny blue for the sea.

At some point the children went off to play and the mothers took over.

I have to admit that I lucked out with the other mothers in the group. M comes from a household with not only a whole supply of arts and crafts materials, paints and markers, but they also own a hot-glue gun. Who owns a hot-glue gun? Reader I was impressed.

I also must confess that by the time it was all being assembled (with the hot-glue gun) I had relegated myself to the role of clean-up crew and was busy tidying up in the background. Yes, there are things I need to work on if we're going to make it successfully through primary school.