September 1st And So It Begins

In Israel September 1st means back to school for everyone from Nursery to 12th Grade. All schools, all locations, all pupils.

We are not morning people

DD still thinks it's the law that you have to have your photo taken on the first morning of school. She wasn't happy about it but I got my photo. On the second go she tried not to look so grumpy. We are not morning people and this is the first morning in two months that we've been up before 8.30 am. (Or possibly 9.....or even 10.....etc....). She did go to bed at 8.30 last night but couldn't fall asleep until way after 10. I'm hoping she'll be more tired tonight after the early start to the day.

Looking at the photos I'm struck by how casual she looks compared with the uniforms and proper shoes worn in England. Oh well, we all look smarter in the winter.

I noticed a LOT of families speaking English at the drop off today. Much more than usual. I was dreading telling the new Head Teacher that we are going away next week (it's my father's stone-setting in London). However as soon as she heard my rubbish Hebrew she offered to switch to English which she speaks perfectly. Life just got a lot easier.

(As I write a helicopter has been circling low over our road and over the school. This is ominous as it usually means they are looking for something or someone. And now police sirens have started.)

The new Head was very nice and understanding about it. Whilst agreeing that's it not ideal she accepted my promise to take maths and Hebrew books with us and to keep up with the work. I was worried as she doesn't know me yet - I could be a completely flaky parent who's always flitting off for holidays during the school year, but it was fine.

She tried harder to look happy for this one

After a long and tearful goodbye to the school guard of nine years, at the end of last semester, today he was back at his post. In July we wrote cards, bought him a gift, he sat next to the leaving Head Teacher in the 'Goodbye Assembly' and they both shed a tear. She gave him a hug - it was all very emotional. And here he is back again at his post by the school gate. Whatever, it was good to see him.

I signed up for the afternoon program with homemade lunch at 2.30 pm when lessons end for the day. On the one hand it's more expensive than last year but on the other hand I now only have to send DD with her 10 O'clock snack, plus a little extra for the 1 pm break, and not with lunch as well - that was a killer especially as she won't eat sandwiches or anything that I make really.

I got a slight reduction in price because DD decided to be vegetarian and she's kept to it strictly for about six months now. So she'll just be getting the carbs and the vegetables which she'll have to eat - the afternoon lady is very good at making them eat their lunch.

So that's it. The first morning of 3rd Grade. No big deal - I didn't even have to go to the classroom with DD, she just went ahead. Good luck to us and everyone for a successful and happy school year!

Building Noah's Ark

Having told you you how happy and grateful I was not to have to build Noah's Ark as one of the other girls in DD's group has parents who love doing craft projects, I actually got quite into the whole event as more and more amazing arks turned up at school. The parents really outdid themselves on this one. Here are some photos.

I even sort of want to make one myself now.

Back To School And Other Volatile Situations

Unlike in the UK and other countries where each school or district goes back to school on different days, in Israel every school. kindergarten and nursery starts the academic year on September 1st. It's a day of national celebration. Every school has a ceremony to welcome the new First Graders. Every child has the obligatory photo taken (which is then promptly displayed on facebook - to be fair, I've seen a lot of these from the UK and USA too). DD hates having her photo taken but I told her it was the law so she reluctantly agreed.

"If I must"

We started second grade. There were tears on the way to school for the first day. She is terrified that the Hebrew will be too hard. (I'm a little concerned myself).

I was greeted at the end of the second day with DD, hands on her hips, telling me, "Mummy, this isn't going to work if you keep forgetting to put the things I need in my bag!" Of course she had everything in her bag that she needed but she's not familiar with the books yet so she didn't know.

The parents' whatsapp group was buzzing tonight about the second question (out of two) in Bible homework: What Pentateuch will we be learning this year? None of us knew the answer. LOL. I'm glad it wasn't just me. DD wrote, using a full sentence as instructed: I don't know what Pentateuch (I think it means what book of the Pentateuch) we will be learning this year. I resisted the urge to add: So I'm looking forward to a nice surprise. An email from the teacher earlier implied that there had been an information sheet but if there had been it never arrived home. Hebrew homework was a doddle in comparrison. I did most of it myself as we were dangerously near a meltdown. Phew!

WARNING - skim the next paragraph without trying to understand the details. It's just to give an idea of the situation.

There are 'afternoon programme' wars at our school. (School finishes at 2.20 pm whereas working parents do not.) After a six year monopoly for the privately run afternoon programme for grades 1 to 3, the municipality has brought its own afternoon programme to the school which is half the price of the private one. On the other hand the private programme provides home cooked meals and you can sign up for individual days whereas the public programme has no food and you have to pay for the full week even if you only need select days. On the other hand you can pay for a hot school lunch in a sealed tv-dinner type box for next to no money but also next to no nutrients. On the other hand three selected days at the private programme are more expensive than the full week of the public programme. And then there is the third option - school run extra curricular activities. DD wants to do art and magic. Two activities are cheaper than the public programme but three activities would be more expensive. So I'm fine with going with the activities as I only need cover for the two days. Then the private programme realized it was in a precarious situation and started to lower its prices. But they've not updated the partial week prices so it's now more expensive to send your child for half the week to the private programme than for the whole week. And further options in the private programme now include the programme without food or the food without the programme. It's all extremely confusing.

You can tune back in now. Or not.

The other complicated thing is the meal schedule. Left over from the days of rising with the dawn, grabbing a cup of coffee and a chunk of bread, and putting in a few hours in the fields before a proper brakfast at 10 am, every school has the 10 o'clock meal which is brought from home - a sandwich and some fruit and/or vegetables. Maybe a yogurt drink aswell or a cereal bar. Up till last year this was a good idea as the kids didn't eat again until they had a hot lunch after school at around 2.30pm. (Great for us as we don't do breakfast in our house - a glass of OJ and out the door.) Then last year the cheap catering hot-lunches were introduced and served at 12:50. So the afternoon programme lady had to serve her good but more expensive food (which DD had last year) also at 12:50. Only she wasn't that hungry at 12:50 was she? Did I mention that another meal option is to send both a packed breakfast and lunch into school with your child? Shoot me now.

OK, here's what we're doing.

OJ before leaving the house at 7:55am, 10 o'clock meal has now been moved to 9:30 (good for us) and lunch break at 12:50. I am sending in a box of food which will be enough to cover both meal breaks. DD can eat whatever she wants from the box at either meal. And when she comes home at 2:30 she can finish the leftovers, add a snack if necessary and call it late lunch. We'll then have an early supper at about 5 pm. (Twice a week she'll be home at 4pm after her chosen activities.)

I'm exhausted and it's only the second day. Tbh I'm generally exhausted atm but that's another blog post.

First Grade Was Magic!

This was a very apprehensive pupil about to go to First Grade on September 1st 2014.
















And this was the final Day of First Grade on June 30th 2015.

First Grade is magic. I remember the opening ceremony (Israelis have ceremonies for everything) and thinking that the Second Graders looked so much older than the new First Graders who still looked like they were in Kindergarten. One of the mothers with older children told me that this year is the biggest jump in development from small children to schoolchildren.

She was so right. Suddenly they have to deal with a timetable, lessons which run according to schedule and not according to what they feel like doing, homework, sitting and completeing work, and interacting with children in the school, up to 12 year olds in Sixth Grade.

And that's just the mechanics. In First Grade they learn to read and write (in Hebrew). They learn real Maths. They learn Science and Geography, Art, Music, Personal Development and Life Skills. They learn English As A Second Language (we knew all the English already but it brought our report card average up significantly) and Jewish Studies about the Jewish calendar and stories from the Torah (Old Testament). There was Physical Education and Dance, there were trips and hikes. There was a lot about Israel, especially the songs and all about Jerusalem. In the afternoon programme there was cookery.

At home we had play dates, we practiced reading English, DD rode her bike, I read chapter books to her (in English), we went to bed far too late, we argued and negotiated, we ate too much junk, but we always did the homework on time. DD spent far too much time on the tablet (but not more than I spent on my laptop and we don't have tv),  Next year we will try harder.

Last August I bought 10 t-shirts with the school badge transfer in the largest size that didn't look ridiculous thinking they might last two or three years. LOL, as soon as the Summer School is over most of them are going in the bin and we'll start again. (We'll get the cheapest ones costing under 3GBP.) I didn't bargain for ketchup at lunch, chocolate cake when a child has a birthday, paint and clay in art, and an irresistable desire to chew the collar when you're a bit overwhelmed in school.

We love DD's teacher, Meirav and we are delighted that she'll be going up to Second Grade with the same class.

I learned loads too. My Hebrew improved as I had to read the daily emails from Meirav with the homework and other notices. (Interesting that DD has learned she doesn't have to pay attention to instructions at school for homework and future events, what to bring, etc... as she knows there'll be an email.)

I learned that Pesach (Passover) is celebrated for only 7 days and not 8 - who knew? We only found out when DD got it wrong on her worksheet. (FYI Pesach is celebrated for 8 days outside Israel and only for 7 days in Israel. Of course I knew this but we are always in London for Pesach so it's not what we do and I forgot.)

We got a proper report card with grades and comments. She excelled in Learning Skills, Social Skills, English, Music, Art, and Dance. We're ok in Physical Education (for now :~) ). I know we have to practise Language Skills as they are in our second language. I was surprised that we didn't do better in Maths but I suspect some of that is due to not understanding the instructions. Nevertheless we will practise maths over the summer too. We got a row of 'sufficient' for Science. They say 'sufficient' but they mean 'not really sufficient' or 'just sufficient to pass but no more.' Again this is a lot to do with a lack of self confidence in answering the questions in case she gets it wrong.

Finally, DD has not taken part in any of the ceremonies or performances so far excpet to be in the chorus. Last week she told me, "Mummy I know all the parts for the groups in the performance so I could have performed." When I asked her why she didn't volunteer to be in it she said, "I didn't realize it would be so easy to learn." And yesterday she said, "sometimes in Science I knew all the answers but I didn't say in case I was wrong. And when they said the answers I was RIGHT!" I think we may be about to win another battle. But we have the whole of Second Grade to conquer that one.

Goodbye First Grade. It's been a blast and you were magic! 

#ShabbatShalom : Summer Harvest

Whilst watering the kindergarten garden this week and picking a nice crop of cherry tomatoes and mint, my eye kept wandering to the kindergarten next door where the tomatoes were bigger and they had red cabbages growing. No one was tending their plot. As luck would have it, the teacher from that kindergarten arrived to do some prep for September. I told him he should pick some vegetables from his garden and he was surprised that anything had survived the heat. I offered to water it all for him as we were there anyway and he, of course, invited me to pick anything I could use. Win-win. This is what we harvested yesterday.

The Kindergarten Garden

As we live opposite the kindergarten we volunteered to water the flowers, herbs and tomatoes in the garden during August. The tap round the back isn't working so we watered the front and back gardens from the tap at the front using four small containers. I think we may have to invest in a large watering can.

On the long trek to the back garden

We may have to harvest some of these later in the week

An abundance of mint

We also collected and disposed of two bags of rubbish.

And my reward....

Mint and hot water - deliciously refreshing

The Plot Resolved

I've waited three months to write this post. I've had the title ready since writing the first post about the building of our new kindergarten. You can read the back-story via these links:

An Empty Plot
The Plot Unravels
The Plot Thickens
The Plot Is Abandoned

LSS, the caravans weren't caravans at all but pre-fab buildings that are plastered on the outside and set into the ground. Each one (there are two kindergartens on the plot) has it's own reinforced concrete room (a.k.a. bomb shelter) attached and a playground at the front with climbing equipment and a sandpit.

Inside, they are enormous, with cloakrooms, toilets, a kitchen, a stockroom, shelter cum office, and enough space for all those essential kindy-corners (playhouse, library/reading, art, etc...) as well as a huge activity area. We lucked out. It was certainly worth the wait.

In the end they started building right at the end of September and it took them exactly two months. Below is a photo-diary of the progress at each stage, taken from my balcony.

Meanwhile, today at 08.30 the Mayor of Jerusalem, Nir Barakat (possibly the best looking mayor in the world - eat your heart out Boris!) is coming to an official opening. The children will be performing the songs and dances they did at the Genesis Party last week. We are all invited but after DD's non-cooperative attitude it's probably best if I don't go - I know she joins in better when I'm not there. So I'll try and catch Nir arriving from the balcony and keep away.

The original playground (don't worry they have two more playgrounds in the school).

The playground was dug up in August.

I got very excited when they started digging but then nothing happened for a month.

At the beginning of October they laid the foundations for the reinforced rooms.

The reinforced concrete rooms were built first.

Then the pre-fab unit arrived.

I thought it would be small but nice.

But they added another unit.

Ok, this is a good size I thought.

And then more units arrived. 

It was cool to see it put together. 

Wow, it's enormous!

The climbing toys arrive!

And here it is all plastered and finished. 

Nir Barakat, Mayor of Jerusalem, arrives for the opening. 

Nir Barakat
Right he's better looking than Boris Johnson?