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Yom Kippur is fast approaching and to prepare for the upcoming fast day, the first grade students are making something called a Pomander, a lemon with cloves stuck into it, to help their fasting family members. The strong and yummy scent of the lemon and cloves can be very refreshing and reviving to people who are fasting on Yom Kippur. The students had fun, poking holes into the lemons with tooth pics and pushing the cloves into place! And the classrooms smelled amazing!

First Grade boys prepared themselves for Yom Kippur this past week. The class welcomed Rabbi Freundlich who shared a gripping story with the class about the power of Teshuva.

As we have eased into the school year, TDSA has started to roll out its new, exciting Enrichment Program. The goal of the Enrichment Program is to spark student curiosity and confidence. Here a group of fourth grade boys familiarize themselves with our robotics kits as they prepare to learn more about robotics and programing.

TDSA's Kitah K students and their families had a fabulous time working together to create beautiful sukkah decorations during the annual Sukkah Decoration Make and Take event. Parents, siblings and Kitah K students, cut, glued and colored chains, stars and other hanging decorations to enhance their sukkahs for the upcoming Chag! We're sure that our Kitah K boys and girls will look at their decorations with pride come Sukkos!

Every year, TDSA's hallways come to life with creative, cute and funny model sukkos! This year's Sukkah Contest is beginning and we can't wait to see what everyone makes! So get out your carboard boxes, glue, markers, crayons and playdough and prepare to wow our secret judges with your handiwork!

In honor of Rosh Hashana and the season of fall, the Kindergarteners became Apple Investigators. They measured, weighted, tasted, counted apple seeds and predicted and discovered if apples float!

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!