Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

The Middle School Girls have been hard at work preparing for their original play.
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The Middle School Girls have been crushing their Adar Dress-up Days. Monday's "Anything But a Backpack" day featured some very creative alternatives to the bags the middle school girls usually lug around. One girl carted her books around in a baby carriage! Wednesday saw the girls dressing up as various characters from Mo Willem's Gerald and Piggy, to waldo and more! Between twin/duo day on Thursday and sports/career day on Friday, there's bound to be a lot of creativity on display.

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 Teks Hashba'a (swearing in ceremony) and were bursting with pride, just like the rest of Oren's TDSA family!

In honor of the monthy of Adar, doors all over the school have been decorated to reflect the fun Adar Spirit permeating TDSA. Doors decorated with balloons, Purim masks, Hamantashen and more are everywhere. The sixth graders even decorated their door in the most adorable way-with baby pictures of themselves and their teachers. There's such an amazing amount of creativity on display and we can't wait to see how the rest of the classes decorate their doors in honor of Purim!

With Purim just around the corner, our students are really getting into the costume mood. Starting Tuesday, the Lower School students have been dressing up in various themes. On Wednesday, the lower school students dressed up as figures from Tanach, on Thursday they picked their favorite profession to dress up as and on Friday, everyone looked so cozy in their best pajamas! With more fun dress-up days next week, we're looking forward to seeing everyone's costumes as we count down to Purim!

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!