Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

One of the highlights of the Elul season for our second graders is the opportunity to build their own Esrog boxes with Rabbi Rubin. The students cut, shaped, drilled and screwed every piece of the box together under Rabbi Rubin's careful supervision. The second graders can't wait to bring their boxes home to show their parents!

Morah Bracha's first graders have been busy preparing for Rosh Hashana. They're learning all about the different Simanim we eat on Rosh Hashana.
One of the girls' favorite Simanim is apples dipped in honey and they are making beautiful and colorful honey dishes and trays to bring home.

Rabbi Oratz's eighth grade shiur had a lesson that blew their minds on Monday! Rabbi David Silverman of the Atlanta Scholars Kollel came to the class to share his expertise regarding blowing shofar. After an energetic lesson about the halachos of Shofar, Rabbi Silverman had the students practice blowing the Shofar. Safe to say, everyone had a 'blast'!

This past Thursday, our third grade girls reached an incredible milestone. They're deepening their understanding of Chumash and Navi and beginning learning Rashi! The girls celebrated this accomplishment with a beautiful Mesibas Rashi, complete with Divrei Torah, sweet treats and fun games! May learning torah continue to be this sweet!

In STEAM class, the fourth grade boys are "wetting" their curiosity learning all about water. The boys did a number of experiments including creating water vapor to simulate the water cycle and testing water absorption into different types of soil. At TDSA it's important to us that our students understand the world around them and our fourth graders are well on their way!

Every year Kitah K greets the New Year with a beautiful Rosh Hashana Sing-A-Long. The Kitah K students did a wonderful job singing familar and new Rosh Hashana songs to share their excitement for the upcoming chaggim! All the parents who came made it a truly special event!

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!