Purpose of the shift: The first art activity of this year at the Huda preschool.

The finishing touches are still being put on the new preschool, but the preschool is already functioning.  34 children were present today.  When we arrived Huda and the children were happy to see us.  The children who were in preschool last year recognized us and have come to regard us as friends.  The children were sitting around new tables.  Every now and then, workers entered the preschool to talk to Huda causing disruptions to preschool activity.  In addition to Huda, there were three other women present in the preschool to help with the activity. 

Topic of the activity: Color recognition – which is described in the attached document.

 Activity program: Reading the book “A Tale of Five balloons”.  Talk about and introduce colors, and use of finger paints for making patches of color and finger prints on paper.

Our advance preparations: For every activity, we prepare a description of the activity in Hebrew and Arabic and generally we talk about the activity with Huda at the end of the previous visit so that all the advance preparations will be completed ahead of time.  This time we were unable to do so because final decisions regarding the activity were only completed a couple of days before the activity.

Huda’s advance preparations: Huda and the children collected rocks that were to be used to dip into the colors and stamp on paper.

As usual, we insist that the activity be divided into defined stages.  This time there were many disturbances while the activity was going on which somewhat affected concentration on the activity.

1.            Huda read the story and we tried to help her so that the children would be active rather than passive participants in the reading.

2.            When the story ended, we gave each child a piece of paper and a rock.

3.            Huda opened the bottle with the first color, and with a little guidance from us, led a discussion of sorts about the color.  Children who wore clothes of the color being discussed stood up, the children pointed to objects of that color. 

4.            We put dishes containing paint of one color on each table.  The children then  used the stones and their hands to make imprints on the paper.

5.            The activity was repeated using different colors.  Some of the children – the older ones – were enthusiastic about the activity and spontaneously entered into it.  Some of them used so much paint that the paper tore.  Others were very restrained in their use of paints.

6.            At the end, we collected the pictures and the stones and put them on the floor along one of the walls of the preschool – now there is room to do this!

7.            We thoroughly cleaned spots of paint from the new tables using whatever was at hand (e.g. tissues), because there were no cleaning materials in the preschool.

Pictures of the activity (Judy – The album of October 11 2012

https://picasaweb.google.com/113044451662544057850?authkey=Gv1sRgCNS_j8qy0sCOGA

“Staff” meeting:

According to our established routine, after the children had left for home, we sat and talked about the day’s activity and the activity planned for the next visit.  But this time, we were unable to do so because of constant interruptions from the men trying to finish the work on the preschool and consulting with Huda about what to do.  In general, it seems as if there is not yet a daily routine in the new preschool.  There is also a need to find a way to hang up the children’s pictures, in addition to several other things that need to be done before the preschool functions in an organized way.