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TDSA's Middle School had the honor of welcoming Rabbi Eli Eleff, Director of Kashurus Education at the OU, on Tuesday afternoon. The students received an in-depth crash course on how modern Kashrus organizations certify our food. From understanding sourcsing kosher ingredients, ensuring kashrus of the factory and how certification is documented. Then Rabbi Eleff went through various foods, from soft serve ice cream to slurpees and soda dispensers and clarified how we can know if they are kosher or not. The students were fascinated with all this incredibly relevant information and asked incisive follow up questions to ensure they truly understood what Rabbi Eleff was teaching them.

Over the last few weeks the sixth grade boys at TDSA were hard at work. The boys have become experts on the various kelim (items) in the Miskhan and built beautiful displays and to-scale replicas to demonstrate their knowledge. This past Friday, the boys welcomed their parents and teachers to a fantastic display of the Kelim of the Mishkan and taught their visitors everything they knew. The Mishkan project bought the Mishkan to life for the students and those who visited.

In STEAM class, Mrs. Pelishev's fourth graders expanded their knowledge of the engineering of bridge construction. After experimenting with budling a bridge between two books, the students now attempted to span the distance between two tables. The longer distance presented a unique challenge. The students used Lego to construct their bridges and played around with various bases, widths, and support structures to help their bridges span between the two tables and support their Lego "passengers."

Just before Shavuos, our eighth grade boys completed their unit on Mikvaot on Gemarah. After delving into the minutia of what makes something a kosher mikvah, the boys visited the Mikvah of Toco Hills with Rabbi Feldman to see how the halachos they learned are applied in real life!

This week Kitah K took advantage of the beautiful weather and walked over to Toco Hill Kroger on a Fruit finding mission. As part of the class's unit on brachos the students explored the Krogers fruit section for the bracha of Ha'etz. Kitah K heard all about where the fruit at Kroger comes from, which fruit are the best sellers, and what it's like to work at Kroger. They then got to pick out and buy their own Ha'etz fruit! Yum!

Mrs. Bram's 5th grade students are experiencing what it was like to live under colonial rule in pre-revolutionary war America. For the last few weeks they've been taking part in a fascinating classroom experiment, where the students are the colonists who need to respond to the actions of the British Government. Mrs. Bram pays the students once a week, but also collects "taxes" around the classroom that stand in for the various Taxes and Acts passed by the British Parliament at the time. Students have to pay a "stamp tax" for every hand-out Mrs. Bram gives out or they need to rent pencils to simulate the effects of the Tea Act. Over the last few weeks the taxes and the frustration to these taxes has been ramping up. This week the students (led by Mrs. Bram) had their own version of the First Continental Congress to discuss the effects of the Intolerable Acts. As the pressure keeps building, the students experience and understand in a very personal way, the factors and emotions that led to the American Revolution.

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!