Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Kindergarten and the Tower(s) of Jenga

On Wednesday afternoons, I make the 20 minute bicycle ride to the nearby village of Jamina. Today's ride was more difficult than usual due to the cold rain and "Kansas" like winds.

Seriously, this was me today.


After sitting down to have a coffee with my friends at the church office, I decided to brave the wind and ride to Jamina. Waiting for me on the other side of the bridge was 30 minutes of laughter, singing, my friend Zoli, and a handful of little children. Each week, I meet Zoli (he's the pastor at the Lutheran church in Jamina) outside the kindergarten building. We go inside and begin to gather the children, who have just finished their snack time. We greet them and wait for them to put on their coats and hats, and change out of their slippers/inside shoes and into their boots.


Once everyone is bundled, they rush to form a line at the door (always wanting to be first, of course!) and put their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. They form a "train" and chant the following, as we move to another space:

Ziki-zaka-zakatol,
ez a vonat valahol.
Én vagyok a vasutas,
te meg legyél az utas!

which means...

Ziki-Zaka-pounding, 
this train somewhere. 
I am in the railway, 
you become a passenger!



Once we are settled in our space, we always take time to pray and sing a song or two. Zoli plans an activity, often based on a story in the Bible. In past weeks, we have colored pictures of scenes from the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of loaves and fishes, and played memory games. 

Today's activity was based on the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
If you don't know the story, click here.

Zoli placed two containers of Jenga blocks in front of the children, separated them into two groups, and asked each group to build a tower with the blocks. Not surprisingly, this was also a lesson on how to work together to accomplish something greater. 





"Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 
(Gen. 11:4)

The children were then asked to build the tallest tower possible by using all of the blocks. With Zoli's help, they were able to create the tower below! They were blown away by his idea to place a few blocks vertically on the top of the tower. 


But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.  That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
(Gen. 5-9)
From what I could gather, Zoli then told the children that God saw what the people did and thus created different languages and scattered them all over the Earth. He must have asked the children to name languages, because I heard shouts of 
Angol! (English)            Nemet! (German)            Olasz! (Italian)   
Francia! (French)           Magyar! (Hungarian)

As time was running short, the children packed up the blocks, and we said the Lord's Prayer, which we always say at the end of our time together. One of the children wanted to sing again, so we sang the song "Ez az a nap!". It is a catchy tune and one you have probably heard before. It is a song that beats loudly in my heart each time I leave the kindergarten class.

Do you recognize this song?!

 


Ez az a nap, ez az a nap,
mit az úr szerzett, mit az úr szerzett! (x2)
örvendjünk, vígadjunk e napon!

örvendjünk, vígadjunk e napon!
mert ez az a nap, ez az a nap,
mit az úr szerzett!

and in English...

This is the day, this is the day,
that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made! (x2)
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
This is the day, this is the day,
that the Lord has made!





No comments:

Post a Comment