My First Day of Fieldwork

Yesterday, at around 12:45, I took a train down to the Ramaz School (same building as Devora's office) for my first day of fieldwork. I sat in the school office for about 10 minutes and then a very nice woman came in and showed me around the school building. Then she took me to the classroom that I would be working in for the next 4 Tuesdays. There are 3 classes per grade. Each of them have names of cities in Israel. First grade classes all start with the letter aleph, second grade with bet, etc. I was put in the second grade classroom of Beer Sheva. There were 18 kids there. When I got there, they were finishing up with their reading time. After that, they moved onto math. The teacher put out different coupons, and the kids got a math sheet that had to do with adding different coupons together. To help with their counting, the teacher put out baskets of fake coins. There were so many kids that shocked me with how smart they were (Bli Ayin Hara).

After math, we went downstairs to the science lab. There was a woman there who was teaching them about motion. The week before, they had made tops and this week they made zoomers. They put a piece of string through the outside holes of a small disc, tied a knot at the end and spun the string around and around. When they pulled it tight, the disc spun and made a whooshing noise. I might have enjoyed it more that the kids did. After that, we went upstairs. The teacher asked if I wanted to sit in on a teacher's meeting or stay with the kids if I wanted to. I told her that it's probably better if I stay with the kids, so I did. Besides, I already had friends in the class. They were in the middle of making Purim puppets. The art teachers had all the materials out on the table and the kids continued decorating their puppets. The teachers had hung up a list of choices of what Purim characters the kids could make. These kids are so talented and creative. I could not believe some of the masterpieces that were unfolding. After art it was 3:00 and time for me to go.

I had such a great time with my fieldwork. I am now so much more confident in my career path. I can't wait to start!