Hello, Friends and Colleagues!
As many of you know, the Foundation for Jewish Camp with the generous support of the Genesis Philanthropy Group is launching a nation-wide initiative that will create opportunities for children and teenagers from Russian-speaking families to have a transformative experience at Jewish overnight camps across the United States and Canada . In order to create the best possible programs that would respond to the unique interests of the community, we would like to learn as much as we can about Russian-speaking families and their perspectives on camp, informal education and Jewish identity, as well as their specific needs.
Please help us distribute this quick online survey to as many Russian-speaking parents as possible and encourage them to respond, making their opinions really influence the programs at hundreds of Jewish camps in North America. Below please find a short message and the link to the survey.
We value your opinion and need your help in creating the most interesting and meaningful camp programs for your children! We would like you to share your unique perspective by filing out this quick online survey – upon completing the survey you can enter a raffle for a $250 gift certificate! We also would love to hear from your friends, so please pass this on to other Russian-speaking parents (the top 5 people with most referrals get $100!!!)– the more voices we hear, the better we understand the specific needs and interests of our community.
Looking forward to learning what you think! Please click here to fill out the survey http://deploy.ztelligence.com/start/index.jsp?PIN=15TTHGL5QXVB6
Alina Bitel, Program Director, Genesis Camp Initiative
Foundation for Jewish Camp
t 646-278-4533 f 646-278-4501 www.jewishcamp.org
Today I finally had enough. My son was supposed to do his homework, which usually takes him 15 minutes, but today it was taking forever. Hours rolled by as he slowly wrote and rewrote every number, over thinking every step. But what made me so angry was that my son knows the material but just didn’t feel like doing it; he was taking his time just to irritate me. I tried everything to convince him: threatening, bribing, taking away privileges, even yelling, but nothing seemed to work. He finally finished his 15 minute homework in 2.5 hours.
After I put him down for the night I decided to do some research. This was not the first episode of laziness that we’ve had, and in the past these episodes did not only pertain to homework. What I was trying to figure out through my research is where this laziness is coming from and how to fight it. I came across an interesting article, which, although originally published in 1916, totally applied to my current situation.
The article suggests that children need to understand what is “in it” for them. “It is the children who have been driven to do the unpleasant things that have no meaning for them who resort to ‘laziness’ as the only escape from the disagreeable tasks.” After reading this, things began to look a lot clearer to me: I need to stop giving my son things when he asks for them and instead make him earn the things he wants.
The article concluded with an interesting thought: “Finally, there are a few children who naturally take to the contemplative life—they are dreamers, poets, philosophers. They have their uses even if they do not do ‘useful work.’” As much as I found the idea that my son might fall into this category and become the world’s next great philosopher reassuring, I don’t really want to test this theory to find out that it may not be true. So instead, I will try to act now and make my son’s homework more rewarding; we’ll see where that gets us.
http://www.oldandsold.com/articles08/children-21.shtml
So my son will be going to kindergarten next year (still can’t get over this fact) and one of my biggest questions when it came to school was about meal time. I was told that we can either pack a lunch or buy one from the cafeteria. I was skeptical about the cafeteria, but all my friends convinced me that cafeteria lunch is nothing to be afraid of and it will make my morning routine a lot easier. So I gave in, thinking that this summer my son will have lots of practice with cafeteria food at his day camp.
On the first day of camp we were given a meal menu which included all the snacks, breakfast and lunch menus. However, when I asked my son what he actually ate from this elaborate list, he said, “I ate bread; I like bread.” This was when I decided that cafeteria food was probably not going to work for us. I started researching different lunch box options and was able to find a few good ones that could store both hot and cold lunches.
