It's the end of the school year. Which means one thing (one thing other than soul-crushingly hard final exams, that is): end-of-the-year parties in preschool.
Last week we had parties for N, D and A very nearly back-to-back.
For those of you not familiar with the Israeli preschool system, a party in preschool isn't just a bunch of bored parents sitting around while their hyper offspring eat cake and run around. The hyper offspring are expected to put on a production that usually involves upward of one hour of singing and dancing.
This is apparently the Song Lady's sole opportunity to show the parents that she has been providing valuable enrichment activities for their children, and thereby to justify her salary. Personally, I think she could probably earn more by doing nothing with the kids all year, then passing a hat around at the beginning of each preschool party and warning that the production length will be inversely proportionate to the amount of cash collected.
But that's just me. A lot of parents seem very enthusiastic about these things, actually.
For whatever reason, at D's end of the year party they started by giving the kids red sashes to wear as ties. This was a bizarre choice.
I have to admit, performances by 3 and 4-year-olds are actually pretty fun. The kids are old enough to have a general sense of what's going on, but young enough that things are going hilariously wrong on a near-constant basis.
(D was actually more or less on track during her whole party. She did get a little extra excited at the beginning and start jumping around in the middle of the room while the preschool teacher was still giving her welcome speech. But from that point on she was remarkably focused. She was using her tambourine as a tambourine while the child next to her busily licked his, and she wasn't one of the kids who caused the "hold hands and walk in a circle" bit to devolve into chaos.)
And on the bright side, these events provide hours of free entertainment for younger siblings down the line. S can spend hours watching old footage of D's hannukah party from last year.
Still, I wish that if preschool teachers didn't have the sense to cut these parties way, way shorter, they would at least provide a little in the way of entertainment for those of us not endlessly fascinated by watching small children forget the words to songs.
I can dream.
Last week we had parties for N, D and A very nearly back-to-back.
For those of you not familiar with the Israeli preschool system, a party in preschool isn't just a bunch of bored parents sitting around while their hyper offspring eat cake and run around. The hyper offspring are expected to put on a production that usually involves upward of one hour of singing and dancing.
This is apparently the Song Lady's sole opportunity to show the parents that she has been providing valuable enrichment activities for their children, and thereby to justify her salary. Personally, I think she could probably earn more by doing nothing with the kids all year, then passing a hat around at the beginning of each preschool party and warning that the production length will be inversely proportionate to the amount of cash collected.
But that's just me. A lot of parents seem very enthusiastic about these things, actually.
For whatever reason, at D's end of the year party they started by giving the kids red sashes to wear as ties. This was a bizarre choice.
(D was actually more or less on track during her whole party. She did get a little extra excited at the beginning and start jumping around in the middle of the room while the preschool teacher was still giving her welcome speech. But from that point on she was remarkably focused. She was using her tambourine as a tambourine while the child next to her busily licked his, and she wasn't one of the kids who caused the "hold hands and walk in a circle" bit to devolve into chaos.)
And on the bright side, these events provide hours of free entertainment for younger siblings down the line. S can spend hours watching old footage of D's hannukah party from last year.
Still, I wish that if preschool teachers didn't have the sense to cut these parties way, way shorter, they would at least provide a little in the way of entertainment for those of us not endlessly fascinated by watching small children forget the words to songs.
