Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

TDSA's first and second grade boys learned something fascinating this week about the first word in Parshas Vayikra. They learned that when writing the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu specifically made the letter "Alef" in the word "Vayikra-and He called" smaller than the other letters in the word. This was to show Moshe's tremendous humility. Even though Hashem specifically called to him, Moshe made the Alef smaller to show that he wasn't that important. To drive home this lesson, the boys went into our very own beis medrash and were able to see inside the Torah how small the letter "Alef" is in this word. Seeing the small "Alef" up close certainly made quite an impact!

The third grade's unit on natural disasters is taking over STEAM. To supplement their nonfiction reports on natural disasters, Mrs. Pelishev has had the students exploring engineering and science challenges related to various weather conditions. The third grade boys simulated the weather conditions that create massive storms by making a hurricane in a bottle. Meanwhile the third grade girls were challenged to construct a house capable of withstanding the high wind-speeds usually associated with natural disasters and even tested to see if their houses could stand up the high winds they created using their own fans.

The fourth grade girls' enrichment got mechanical last week. The girls completed an engineering challenge to learn about simple non-motorized machines and how they can make moving heavy objects easier. One of the students' passion project involves gardening and will require moving soil. Hopefully, the skills learned in this simple machine building exercise will help give her some ideas on how to accomplish this heavy task.

Shabbos is one of the foundations of Jewish life. It is a time when parents and children can reconnect with each other and with Hashem. Our Kindergarten students have been increasing their pride in their Shabbos observance over the past month. They've made Shabbos projects, learned different laws and customs surrounding Shabbos and shared some of their own with their fascinated classmates. The culmination of this unit was a fun "Melave Malka." Traditionally a meal which escorts Shabbos out on Saturday evening, the Kindergarten students had their Melave Malka on Sunday morning. They came together, ate, sang and celebrated the beauty of Shabbos!

Morah Mindy's Kindergarteners are so excited for their pen pals to receive their next letters! The children made frogs in honor of the Makkah of Tzefardeah (plauge of frogs) to wish their pen pals a "Hoppy Pesach!" We're sure the grandparents, aunts, uncles and special family members who receive these letters will be very "hoppy" with their surprise!

Our first grade girls are on the hunt! For what? For Hebrew vowels (nekudos) of course! The girls tested their knowledge by searching for nekudos hidden in words around the room!

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!