First day of Ulpan

I love the first day of classes. I love getting brand new school supplies and organizing everything and meeting my teachers and it’s probably one of the best days of the year. Ulpan goes from 830 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon with 45 minutes of break spread out in between. It seems overwhelming. I met my kita gimmel (level 3) classmates and our teacher osnat this morning. Our first session (an hour and a half) started out with some introductions and syllabus reading and vocabulary definitions. Before we knew it the first session was done. Wait what? We just started. It was weird, after a 20 minute break and an apple snack, we went back in for round two where we finished the vocab definitions, read the story, discussed the story, and debated the two main questions in the story in pairs before sharing our debates with the class. Then it was time for the break again. Seriously this day was flying. After another break and a sandwich we went back in for the last session where we finished the debates and played a game. For the game, the person who was up wrote 4 numbers on the board. It was then the job of the class to figure out what those four numbers represented. My numbers were 31, 6, 2011, and 2. Can you figure out what they mean for me? After the game, our day was done. It went so quickly! I’m grateful that our teacher knows how to use her time so that we are constantly learning without being bored, like some other classes were. After an extended 45 minute break where I got my homework done, we went upstairs for mincha (afternoon services) and then the day was done. One day down, many to go. I hope they are all as wonderful as today was!