Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

The second grade girls put on a beautiful performance for their mothers and grandmothers about Shemona Esray and what it means to them. It was an inspiring and moving way to introduce this new aspect of Tefillah for the girls!

Torah Day School of Atlanta's 8th grade boys and girls concluded their in-depth study of the Holocaust with an exhibit at last night's Chessed Continuum. Framed through the poem The Butterfly by Pavel Friedman, the exhibit traced the path of the Jews through the Ghettos to the Concentration camps. Along the way, they highlighted the personal stories of young teens who experienced and survived the Holocaust and the Chessed they encountered along the way that made their survival possible.

On Tuesday Night, TDSA hosted their Chessed Continuum. TDSA's gym and surrounding hallways were transformed into a living, experiential timeline demonstrating all the ways Chessed has shaped Jewish History.
The Chessed Continuum concluded with a beautiful series of exhibits demonstrating the real lived Chessed that Jewish communities in Atlanta Israel, and around the world perform every day.

Tonight is TDSA's Chessed Continuum and our students are setting up the amazing displays they have been working on! The Chessed Continuum is a culmination of a year's worth of learning and absorbing the lessons of Chessed and Achdus! We can't wait to see you there!

In honor of Spring, in STEAM, the students tried to answer an important question: Why does watering plants help them to bloom? The students learned all about the importance of water and did an experiment with a paper flower to demonstrate how the water helps flower petals open up!

In gym this week, Coach Stevens introduced the first graders to a hilarious new game: Chicken Tag. Two students were chosen to hold the yellow pool noodles that turn their classmates into chickens and two more were chosen to hold the blue pool noodles that turn them back. The first graders had a blast running, tagging each other, and, of course, clucking like chickens!

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!