Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

Elul is in the air and Kitah K is getting ready Yesterday, they were visited by Mr. Charles Kaplan. Mr. Kaplan comes every year to teach the students about where the shofar comes from and demonstrate how it is blown! Our delicious Kitah K students were fascinated to learn that the shofar is actually the horn of an animal and what direction it grows in! They even got to hear Mr. Kaplan blow the shofar!

What a joy to have everyone back in the building! The energy was pumping this morning as our Kindergarteners entered the building for the first time accompanied by the first, second, third, and fourth graders! Everyone was so excited to see friends, new and old, and the teachers are getting right down to the business of teaching and getting to know their new students. We can't wait to see what this year will bring!

It was a packed first day as our middle school students got oriented to their new schedules and locations! Both the boys and the girls started off the day with a welcome breakfast with their teachers, got in some learning, and then finished off the day with a fun teambuilding activity!

On Sunday Night TDSA opened its doors to our New Parents! For some of our new parents, the New Parent Orientation was their first time experiencing what Torah Day School has to offer. For others, it was a trip down memory lane, as they attended TDSA themselves when they were kids! The parents enjoyed getting to know each other and learning more about what to expect for their children this coming year! We can't wait to greet students-new and old on Tuesday and Wednesday when school starts!

New pencils? New notebook? New parking lot! The parking lots and driveways at TDSA have gotten a brand new update just in time for the school year! Crews have been hard at work repaving the TDSA campus and even some of our administrators and staff got in on the action! When students arrive on the first day it will be to a smooth and shiny new road!

Back to school spirit is in the air and nowhere is that more evident than here at Torah Day School! Teachers and administrators are hard at work setting up classrooms and running meetings in preparation for the new school year. We can't wait for our students to join us soon!

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!