Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

Is it raining inside? Why are our kindergarteners wearing raincoats inside then? Because it’s Mabul Day! In honor of Parshas Noach the students learned all about how Hashem bought the Flood. They went outside and Morah Dena and Morah Rivkah to recount the exciting story. The students had fun sprinkling water on each other to make their own "Mabul", whetting their appetite to learn more.

In this Month’s Rosh Chodesh Assembly, TDSA bought the rain! Led by Activity Coordinator, Ms. Chana Miriam Haller, the students completed fun challenges as a team- first they used a spoon to transport a “raindrop” across the gym, then they turned umbrellas into golf clubs to get a balloon from one space to another. It’s a lot harder than it looks! After all the rain-based activities in honor of Cheshvan, our PTA presidents helped the students cool off with delicious rainbow ices!

On Wednesday night, TDSA parents braved the nippy fall evening to hear Drs. Maggie Wray and Rebekah Weisman. The two experts shared invaluable strategies to help build our children’s executive functioning skills and help them succeed. The presentation was informative, practical and entertaining. Every parent who attended walked away with actionable steps to help their children succeed. The feedback was incredible and the parents had a great time! Stay tuned for more information about upcoming parent events!

Rabbi Pollack's 5th grade students completed the first perek of Masechtas Brachos this week. To test their knowledge, Rabbi Pollock prepared a challenging scavenger hunt that had the students running all around the Modulars and the MPR finding and interpreting clues. The clues were based on the content they had learned in the first perek of Brachos. It was a fun, in-depth way to test and reinforce the students' knowledge.

Welcome Inbar and Andy! Our students are so excited to get to know our new Shinshinim. Inbar and Andy have been leading Ivrit lessons this past week. They introduced themselves with a fun trivia game and the students had a blast matching the facts to each Shinshin. The Shinshinim are also teaching the students many wonderful things to love about Israel, starting with Israeli Innovations that make lives easier for everyone around the world! We can’t wait to learn more with Inbar and Andy!

Kindergarten has been doing a deep-dive into author Mo Willems. The class has been reading his classic books "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus" and the "Elephant and Piggy" Series. In honor of Mr. Willem's, they even learned how to draw some of his famous characters.

The mood was somber throughout the school as we remembered the fallen Israeli soldiers of the IDF and victims of terrorist attacks. Boys and girls in the Middle school participated in a Yom HaZikaron ceremony that explained the meaning of the day, recited prayers for the z'chus of the fallen and their families, a bracha for the current soldiers, and tehilim for all of Klal Yisroel. Mrs. Kalnitz shared stories about Capt. Dekel Swissa, a valiant young man from Bar Giora who served as a Captain in the Golani Brigade,13th Battalion, and was killed at the Paga outpost on October 7 while saving his platoon. Dekel was TDSA's Shinshin in 2018 and lived with the Kalnitz family during his stay in Atlanta.
The lower school visited a display in the lobby depicting a timeline of the wars since the State of Israel's inception. Tomorrow, the mood swings as we celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut as a TDSA community.

How do you know the agenda for the day? You read it, of course! I walked into this Kindergarten class as they were learning the day's plan through a reading activity. This boy was asked to find a blended sound of "ST" within the letter about their major activity. Can you find it? He did!

Escape rooms involve critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration; all excellent skills to build in an academic experience. 8th grade Humanities is learning about the Cold War. Throughout the hallway and the classroom, small groups of girls were intensely focused on escaping from the communist, East side of the Berlin Wall to the West side of Germany during this escape-room-style learning activity. In this picture, the group is using Google Translate to understand German documents to help them on their journey. It was amazing to see these girls engaged in such a creative and valuable way while learning!

8G invited me to view their Ivrit presentations today. Working in pairs, they thought of rooms that served a useful purpose. Then they wrote about these rooms in Hebrew and put it on a slide show or poster. Each group presented their project entirely in Hebrew! It was amazing to see their pride, creativity, and skill

These 5th grade boys didn't even notice me walk into the classroom - they were so intensely engaged in this group discussion. Mrs. Bendicoff split the class into sections, some worked independently while this group shared their thoughts in a literature circle format on the the historical fiction book: "If I lived at the Time of the Signing of the Constitution". They came up with some insightful ideas!

"Which two arctic animals will never meet?" This is the question a kindergarten girl asked me as I observed them making polar bears, arctic hares, walruses, snow foxes, and the like. Each table featured a slew of arts and crafts supplies for the excited girls to create their cold-climate animals they learned all about during science. The answer - which I was proud to get correct - is penguins and Polar Bears. Each is native to a different pole of the globe (North and South). Ask a Kindergartener which lives where!