Hebrew Books, Oppa Gangham Style, and Ships and Sailors...A Day Inside the Life of an English Volunteer

While it's still fresh in my mind, I want to write about the awesome day I had at school today. First, instead of starting out teaching the third graders, we were told to go to the first grade (כיתה א=Keetah Aleph) because their teacher's car had broken down and she had to take a taxi to school. We were very excited because our favorite kid in the whole school, Bar, is in this class plus they're all teeny and adorable. We were also excited because we got to lead the whole class by ourselves. My years of experience as a camp counselor leading warmups made this an easy task...the only problem is that these children don't start learning English until third grade so there was NO english happening. It's all good though-it makes it more fun. I sang a song with them that I learned in cheer camp back in high school because it's the only song I know that doesn't have actual English words in it; it's mostly just sounds. Naturally they loved it because it's silly and they get to dance around. Then after that, we read them stories...in Hebrew. While I was reading (my Hebrew reading level is right about on par with the books they're reading in 1st grade), Ronit, the principal walked in and was stunned by my reading ability. She was not aware that I went to Jewish day school growing up and could read my whole life...but regardless, it felt awesome that I read a whole book in Hebrew by myself to the kids and that Ronit was in awe of what a good job I did (she even told my English teacher Helen, how impressed she was).

After that, we went to the third grade room where we were actually supposed to be and, after being attacked with hugs, wrote some M's in their machberot (notebooks) and pretty much chilled for the rest of the hour. Then we went to the library to teach some sixth graders. I taught them both versions of the game 'Concentration.' I love the group I have for that class because they're sweet kids who want to learn English and are just generally enjoyable to be around. We played jeopardy on the computer after concentration...pretty baller class.

Then it was the Hafsakah (break or recess). This whole week during the break, they've been putting out these huge speakers and the sixth graders have been leading dances for the rest of the kids. Today Nicole and I joined them. We dance to Oppa Gangham Style, Ai Se Eu Tu Pego, and other Israeli songs we didn't know. It was so much fun dancing with them. The first graders dancing to these songs could LITERALLY not be any cuter. I wish recess at home was like this! It's awesome, too, because it's hard not to feel like a celebrity when all the babies are hugging me and all the sixth graders are looking at me for approval and encouragement. They want me to love them. It really makes me feel so good everyday.

So then we were SUPPOSED to have another sixth grade class, but a blind woman came in to talk them about...I don't know, blind things I guess. So instead we, for some reason, were given the girls in fourth grade and took them to the gym to play gym games. I taught them ships and sailors, Indian Chief, and Down By the Banks (again, thank you, years of summer camp).

And thennnn we dipped. So basically what was supposed to be a 5 hour day turned into a 3 hour day, and we really only "taught" one of those hours and even then it was with kids we liked and had fun with. All in all, an awesome day at Hofit.