What’s new at Bambinim?

I haven’t blogged about Bambinim since Lag B’Omer. However, I spend the majority of my time developing Bambinim, with the rest of the staff, so I want to share what’s going on:

Summer Festivals

Bambinim ended its semester of courses this month with a summer festival that we co-hosted with Chabad’s kindergarten. Most of the kids there were in the Chabad kindergarten, some were participants in Bambinim’s courses, and a few were members of both. We were challenged by temperatures near 100º F, not an ideal temperature for four-year-olds to be frolicking outside. But we were happy to have soap bubbles, which in german is “Seifenblasen,” a word I’m starting to like more than bubble.

Girl at Jüdische Oberschule showing off the puppet she made at the Bambinim station

This was actually our third summer festival of ’10. We also participated in the Heinz-Galinski Schule’s and the Jüdische Oberschule’s summer festivals. What I find to be one of the more unique qualities of Bambinim in the Jewish Berlin scene, is our ability to collaborate with Jewish institutions across the scale. We strongly feel that Bambinims courses and goals are relevant for a wide range of families, so the opportunity to mix with different crowds is always exciting.

Chabad students playing with bubbles

Summer Camp

Now, we’re on “Sommer Pause,” which allows us time to not only enhance the Bambinim center, but plan our upcoming 2-week summer day camp. We installed some shelves and a new, amazing chalkboard, as well as climbing bars that look like a giraffe. I get giddy watching Bambinim grow into a beautiful center, because these developments take time. When a long, thought out plan comes together, it is fulfilling.

The summer camp is also well underway. I personally have been to many camps and also worked at a couple. However, to plan it, is really an interesting process. We had to find a team, a theme, educational and fun activities, a daily plan, and promote the camp. And all the time, keep in mind Jewish content and our multilingual, multicultural demographic.

We have an amazing staff. Two young women, who have worked at the Jewish kindergarten, will help. One is part Israeli, part German, the other is part South African, part German. The third teacher speaks Russian, German, Hebrew and English and he has helped Bambinim in past programs. Our chef is from Moldova. With Flora and I, that completes our diverse group! Each person in the group has different skills and experience. We had our parent night yesterday, and it was great to meet some campers and get to know their families.

Bambinim Online!

Other exciting news is that Bambinim’s website launched last month! Alex of Zusya and I have been working on it for some time, creating the site in both english and german. It still needs more developing, but we’re happy Bambinim is finally joining this century by getting online!

Planning 2010-2011

Bambinim’s Director and myself are journeying down to Freiburg next week to meet with Lili, Director of JDC Germany and Katja, her awesome assistant. We will discuss upcoming JDC Germany projects as well as my role in the upcoming year, since I have decided to stay on board here in Berlin for another year. Should be an interesting, milestone coming together, looking back on the last year of Bambinim programming and looking forward to the coming year. In case you’re confused, I work around the Jewish calendar, so by year, I mean “Jewish year.” In the upcoming months, we are looking forward to a German-Israeli high school exchange program, relaunching our courses, including some new, exciting classes in russian, german, and english, and kicking off a new year with Rosh Hashana.