Pre-school Forty five children aged 9 months to 3 years participate in the program. Ten percents of them are children from families who immigrated from Ethiopia to Israel in the last 7 years and close to 50% are referred to us by the municipal welfare department. Educational principles We consider the main principle of educational work to be the interaction between the children and the educators as well as the interaction between the children themselves, with the help of the educators. To put the above in practice, we adhere to a strict ratio of children to educators. We believe the job of the educators is to enable the children to encounter different experiences and to serve as an intermediary for each child during the learning process. These experiences include working with different materials, activities, a daily excursion and games in the yard. Another guiding principle is that children do not learn a concept or a skill in one day. Learning is a long process of interacting with a concept at different times, which enables the child to learn and to build on the concept. In order to support a child's learning, it is necessary torepeat the same activity over and over again. An example of this is when we bake challah for Shabbat or work with the same material once a week, we provide the basis for the vocabulary, concepts and skills connected to that activity. Integration of Ethiopian children in the preschool Within Beit Shemesh there are approximately 600 families who have arrived in the last 7 years from Ethiopia. From these families, there are approximately 150 pre-school age children aged 1 - 3. The Ethiopian community in Beit Shemesh live in a concentrated area and tend to send their children to the Early Childhood centers that usually consist of only Ethiopian children. This produces difficulties in acquiring the Hebrew language and integration into Israeli society. We believe that Ethiopian children could be educated in an integrated culturally- pluralistic framework. This framework should not demand from the new immigrants to forego their culture and language for the sake of Israeli culture and the Hebrew language. Our Objectives To teach the Hebrew language while legitimizing and recognizing the Ethiopian language (Amharic) and the Ethiopian culture. Placing an emphasis on involving Western cultural tools such as different technologies and literacy development. To empower Ethiopian children and their parents by helping them to participate in the educational activities of the Early Childhood Center as a way to cope with the immigration crisis. To make the Ethiopian parents our partners in the quest to integrate their community. To include Ethiopian careers as role models to the children and as a liaison with the parents.

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