Today's blogpost was written by Toby Rubb, a Yahel Social Change Fellow, living, learning, and volunteering for 9-months in Rishon LeZion,Israel.
On March 21st, 2018, Rishon LeZion based fellows, Toby Rubb and Leah Braswell, held an English day at Itamar School. The theme of the day was Around the World with Itamar School. The event took several months of preparation and practice. In the end, it was a beautiful morning of fun in English and an event in which the sixth-graders could showcase their English before they graduate in June. This is English teacher and Yahel Social Change Fellow, Tuby Rubb’s account of the event.
The theme was around the world and the countries with stations were ones that speak English as their first language or as their official second language. 9 countries from around the world were represented and the idea was to show kids how important it is to be able to communicate in English if you plan to travel outside of Israel.
At school we work mainly with the lower level kids in English but once a week we meet with 30 5th and 30 6th graders in what we call the excellence group. For English day the 5th grade kids were the 'tour guides' and started by doing research on their country and creating a beautiful flag for the country they represented. On English day the tour guides were in charge of leading a class from station to station as well as creating the passports with the students in the morning.
The 6th grade excellence group was split up into 9 groups and began by researching their given country. The kids had to find details on the flag, the national food, sport and much more. From there they were responsible for creating a 15 minute station that the other students could come and enjoy. Something that represented their country and that they pulled from their research.
We had some really amazing and creative stations yesterday. The Australia station played put the baby in the pouch (like pin the tail on the donkey) but with kangaroos. Jamaica had a station that involved running and fishing for frogs. Ireland taught an Irish dance and Hong Kong built the skyline with popsicle sticks. All of the students in the 6th grade excellence group were required to write a small speech about their country in English and then were to recite it in Hebrew as well.
The day was fantastic to say the least and the kids were extremely proud of themselves. The students and teachers were raving about it all day and one teacher is going to write a newsletter on it!! It was so amazing to see the success not only for myself and all of the English teachers hard work but the pride in the kids was awesome!!