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On Thursday our second grade boys demonstrated their Chumash skills for their proud parents, Rabbeim, grandparents and siblings. The boys answered question after question about Chumash, Dikduk, and showed off their impressive Hebrew translation skills. The boys then each received their own beautifully decorated Chumash. The boys (and their families) were beaming with pride at their accomplishment! May they use this as a springboard to more Torah learning and a deeper connection with Hashem!

It was a beautiful night at the Atlanta Illuminarium as Torah Day School parents, staff, donors, family, and friends came together to honor three couples who have been instrumental in helping TDSA grow and Flourish. Congratulations to Dr. Chanina and Mrs. Rozi Falk, Rabbi Mordechai and Morah Naomi Cohen and Jordan and Erica Tritt on your well-deserved honor!

The Middle School Girls have been hard at work preparing for their original play.
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Just who is walking around our school this week? Our students are looking very different than they usually do. Between the Lower School students dressing up as people from Tanach, middle school girls dressing as twins, students dressing as their favorite profession and a comfy pajama day, everyone is getting into the Adar spirit! There was so much creativity on display this week and the students had a fantastic time dressing up in honor of Purim!

We are so proud of TDSA alumnus Oren Diener who completed his basic training for the Kfir Unit of the IDF this week. After an incredibly grueling training process, Oren is now ready to help defend the Jewish People as part of the Israeli Defense Force. Oren's father, Chuck Diener (Former TDSA Basketball Coach!) and his brothers (and TDSA Alumni) Amos and Ilan attended Oren's Tekes Hashba'a (swearing in ceremony) and were bursting with pride, just like the rest of Oren's TDSA family!

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!