Torah Day School of Atlanta Home

Back again! Join the TDSA PTA for an exciting Fall Festival on November 22nd from 11:30 AM-1:30 PM

TDSA's book club students met for their first Book club meetings this week and last week. The students enjoyed delicious hot cocoa and cookies and compared notes and their impressions about the books that they read. The students shared what they enjoyed about the books, what they gained and what sparked their curiosity. They then received their next books to read, which many have already made quite some headway on! They can't wait for their next book club meeting!

This week in Gym, 5G played a new and exciting variation on dodge ball invented by our very own Coach Stevens! Instead of just standing on the side when out, the girls had the opportunity to run across the "canyon" between the two teams and if they made it through without getting hit by the ball, could then rejoin their teams. In addition to being fun, the game also involved a fair amount of strategy to win!

Mazal Tov! Mazal Tov! The second grade girls have completed their first Parsha in Chumash and on Wednesday they celebrated their first ever siyum. The siyum was complete with Divrei Torah, yummy treats, balloons and dancing! At TDSA learning Torah is sweet, fun, and exciting! May our second grade continue to grow and learn!

For the last few weeks Kindergarten has been investigating everything there is to know about Pumpkins. The students got a chance to handle real pumpkins. They measured them, guessed if a pumpkin could float and tested their hypothesis (It can!) The students also estimated the number of pumpkin seeds inside a pumpkin and counted them and then rounded out the unit by putting their measuring and counting skills to the test by baking delicious pumpkin muffins!

Did you know that October 21st is Reptile Awareness Day? In honor of the occasion, the students in 2B learned about the different features that distinguish reptiles from other animals. They used this knowledge and their own boundless creativity to develop their own unique reptiles. The students drew pictures of their reptiles, and wrote a short paragraph describing how their new reptiles looked, as well as if they were venomous or had anti-venom. A surprising feature that most of the new reptiles had, was the ability to breathe fire! After drawing and writing about their creations, the students practiced public speaking and presented their new reptiles to the class so they could learn about them too!

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!