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TDSA is under a spell! A spelling spell. In the lead up to our school-wide spelling bee, our students have been practicing their spelling words and rules. Over the course of this week, all the classes in TDSA held class spelling bees to find the contestants for the school-wide spelling bee that is coming up soon!

Middle School Girls Celebrated Rosh Chodesh Kisleiv by kicking off their Wear Your Crown program. The girls enjoyed an extra special Hallel, joined by some very talented Temima girls, a lovely breakfast, an inspiring speaker in Mrs. Wohlfarth, and an engaging activity.

Our Kindergarten students are very appreciative of our troops and everything they do for our country. In honor of Veterans Day, on Tuesday, they wrote beautiful thank you cards to the United States Soldiers for Captain Minkow to deliver to patients at the Veterans Hospital on Wednesday. On Wednesday, the class was also visited by TDSA parent, Lieutenant Colonel Ellman who spoke to our students about the meaning of Veteran's Day and his time in the United States Army and reserves.

In honor of Rosh Chodesh Kislev this week, Morah Cohen and her fifth grade helpers decorated the Ruach Bulletin Board with a giant foil menorah celebrating the "spark" inside each and every one of us!

Mrs. Kaplan's eighth grade reading class has just finished the book Murder on the Orient Express. In order to practice the format of writing reading responses the classes were split into groups and asked to rotate around stations. At each station each group wrote one sentence of a reading- response paragraph. They were expected to back of a claim, provide textual evidence and appropriate citation, as they worked together to craft an effective reading response.

Mrs. Bram's 5th grade students have begun a year-long unit on geography, locations, capitals and facts about the United States of America. They're currently focusing on the Southern Region of the United States. In addition to the memorization aspect for which they have songs and mnemonics to help them, the students have been asked to research and present information about landmarks, tourists sites, geography, climate and famous people from their assigned state. Once they're done with their research and note-taking on their state the students will construct a power-point presentation to describe to their class the uniqueness of each state.

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!