Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Family Yom Haatzmaut night


Family Yom Haatzmaut night

We usually go to the school show for Yom Haatzmaut at night but after so many years of going, I just realized that there's nothing on the shows that really makes you feel connected to the real meaning of the day. It's a nice and festive atmosphere, but not specifically linked to the occasion.
Bekitzur, I decided to have our own family Yom Haatzmaut dinner night with pizza and a contest about Israel and its Zionist recent history(from the 19th century).
Didn't prepare anything yet but at least we have started with the decorations!
I'm a very visual person, so I taught my daughters to be visual persons too! As most of girls (aged 12, 10, 5 & 2) they love art & craft and they love to display their masterpieces.
We are planning to hang a collage sign saying: "happy B- day Israel". One sheet per letter and instead of the word Israel, we did a mosaic Israel flag.
That's what we have for now:





Before leaving, I need to do my daily ranting about education =-)

I noticed, no dati, school-aged kid knows anything about Zionist history. No idea about the wars Israel fought since its creation, nothing about a little bit of history with our relationships with our dear neighbors, political parties in Israel and whatsover.
I'm trying to do some remedial work there, because I want my kids to be involved in the country, to know what's going around, to know their facts so they can have an opinion.
By the way, I highly recommend a history book for teens (actually I'm reading it together with my 10 year-old girl, and it's perfectly ok for her):
The collection has two volume, we are still in volume one (from the 2nd Temple through the XVI century). The 2nd volume goes from the XVI century through the present).
I like it very much because even though I know a lot of the things in the book, everything is very neatly presented and in chronological order (most of the time) so it's a really nice guide to teach your kids about Jewish history based on the book.

That's all folks =-)
Laila tov,
Chana