swimming at the gan

today i visited aliyah's preschool and got to see the swimming pool. since it's a pretty small pool, the kids go in small groups. first they lay out their towels. then put their shoes aside and enter the pool one by one. after some free play, they play games with their teacher using beach balls.
after about twenty minutes, the kids go out, lay on their towels to have a rest, drink some water and go in again... i think they go in a total of two or three times a morning.
needless to say, aliyah thinks it's the greatest activity ever....

braids

one morning after i braided aliyah's hair for school i left the room and i heard her calling to me, "mommy come here! come here!" (in persian, of course) when i went back in her room i found her perched up on her cabinet next to one of her dolls saying, "like her! aliyah is like her."

she's spotted the braids on the doll and wanted me to see that both she and her doll had the same hair do. :)

say "ken"

yesterday aliyah's teacher was telling me that the kids were all seated for their morning gathering and she was calling roll one name at a time. when the teacher got to ari, a little boy that aliyah was sitting next to, he didn't answer. so the teacher said his name again. no response. then the teacher said in russian (ari's first language) "ari, say 'yes'" and ari didn't say anything.

so aliyah put her arms around ari, hugged him, and said, totally in *hebrew*, "say, 'yes'" as if maybe he hadn't understood the russian. ;)