Final project begins in Anafim

As an educator, I sometimes find it really challenging to get good pictures of the children as we go about our day in Anafim. Sure, as we have downtime, I can get a picture of children immersed in books.

I have great photos of the children working on their daily jobs!

Even better are the numerous photos of children concentrating intensely as they work of their hebrew packets.

It is when we start something huge, like our final projects, and energy is pouring out from the children and ideas are flying, that I really struggle to capture the scenes in photos. As the children work, this week sketching out batei knesset from their imagination, I like to sit with the children and hear their ideas. One child explained as he drew why he chose to design bedrooms in his beit knesset (so that sick people who lived far away would have a place to be) while another child emphasized that the torah was really important to the people in her beit knesset and that was why the aron hakodesh (torah ark) had to be really beautiful and elaborate.  The process of developing and carrying out a final project is slow and detailed, the photos only capture so much, the concentration and thoughtful dedication to the endeavor that you can see below, but these photos can’t fully capture the great conversations at kibbud and the exchanges between children and educators that fuel the final projects and endow them with meaning.