the aliya update · hatorah booklet yosef shalom celebrating his birthday with his classmates mazel...

The Aliya Update Uplifting & Upcoming News from Yeshiva Darchei Aliya

Nov. 23 2018

ט‘‘ו כסלו, תשע“ט

פרשת וישלח

Menahel’s Message

A Weekly Column on the Topic of Al Pi Darko Chinuch

Reminder

Sunday Nov. 25 Parent Teacher Conferences

for all elementary grades

No sessions

HOMEWORK IN AN APD ENVIRONMENT

This week, I had the occasion to speak to a number of

parents regarding their children’s homework.

Reflecting back on the conversations, it is no surprise

to me that each of the parents had a very different

view on the topic. In my experience, there is no other

educational topic that has such a wide variety of

opinions among parents.

What would an Al Pi Darko approach say about

homework? In other words, what is our yeshiva’s

policy regarding homework?

In 2007, I was less than a year into establishing an

APD school. At that time, I studied the research and

opinion on the topic and decided that the challenges

presented by homework outweighed its benefits. I

established a school-wide No Homework Policy.

Over the course of that year, I had many discussions

with parents and educators on the subject. I

interviewed students, spoke to other menahalim, and

read more on the topic. I realized that for some

students, homework can be quite beneficial. So, at the

next staff development day, I announced to

my rebbeyim and teachers that we would be changing

our school-wide No Homework Policy to a school-

wide Know Homework Policy.

The staff looked around, puzzled. What exactly is a

Know Homework Policy?

To be continued…

Have a meaningful Shabbos!

Happy Birthday to... Yosef Shalom Mor– 10 Kislev

Yehoshua Zimmer– 11 Kislev

Mazel Tov to…

Mr. & Mrs. Roth

upon the birth of a son

and to Shimmi, Shragi and

Yehudah Roth upon a new

baby brother

May you see much nachas

from him and

from the whole family!

Mazel Tov to…

Mr. & Mrs. Scheiner upon the marriage of their daughter! Mazal Tov to

Shmulie and Shaya on their sister’s wedding!

May you see much nachas from the new couple

and from the whole family!

The Aliya Update ט‘‘פרשת וישלח תשע

Dear Parents, ש“עמו

:חנוכה

This week, the children are all enjoying learning about the חנוכה story and doing

various חנוכה works. They are lacing, tracing, pouring, decorating, painting, and

playing (wow!) while doing the many different חנוכה works in all the areas of our

classroom. When learning the גזירות of Antiyochus the Rasha, we want the children to

experience “אשרינו מה טוב חלקינו” and understand what Antiyochus tried to take away

from us. Therefore , we are having the children experience the excitement and

geshmak that comes with each of the special מצות that were decreed upon by the

wicked יונים. We started with learning the תורה. We replayed שמחת תורה,decorating

our own flags and danced with true passion! To experience Rosh Chodesh, we went

through each month and did something for the yom tov in that month. They enjoyed

dipping the apple in the honey, “doing kapparos”, lighting a menorah, eating donuts,

dressing up for purim, eating “matzah” etc. This gave them a strong feeling of how

lucky we are to have these special yomim tovim and how important Rosh Chodesh is so

we can know when the specific yom tov arrives.

We were all so excited when a “tatty and mommy” brought their little baby boy to

have a bris milah in our classroom! It was so exciting to see the “baby” and get to

name him! We discussed what a special mitzvah it is and how lucky we are to be

yidden!

We then learned about keeping kosher and how we always have to look for the

hechsher on foods before we buy them. The boys were able to look at food packages

and find the symbol that says it’s kosher. We also discussed not eating milk and meat

together.

To top it all off, we finished the week with Shabbos! The boys were enthusiastic as they

prepared for Shabbos by cleaning in every way. They were eager to use the items

they brought and show the special Shabbos clothes they were wearing. They had the

whole Shabbos experience from kiddush to delectable challah, singing beautiful

zemiros, davening in shul, and of course-who can leave out the Shabbos party!

Throughout all these experiences the boys developed a strong pride in being a yid

and said they would never listen to someone like Antiyochus!

Preschool Morah Hindy Meisels

Shloimy placing the candles into the menorah forming

a pattern

Eliyahu matching the correct letters to formulate the word

reinforcing the צורת האות

Ahron practicing eye hand coordination while learning to

pouring the “oil” into the pitcher

Ezreil exercising fine motor skills while lacing

his dreidels pocket



Yehuda doing a three step חנוכה work matching numbers, ב-א , and words

Dovi continuing patterns of the Dreidels

The boys enjoying a chanuka game

Working on our chanuka project

:נפלאות הבורא

This week we focused on our sense of hearing. The boys were really quick at

finding מצוות that we can do with our ears. It was very exciting to play games

that we really had to keep our ears open for! First we played a bingo game– we

heard different sounds Morah recorded on the cd and had to match the picture

to the sound. Example: we heard a baby crying and we knew it was the picture

of the ברית, we heard a boy make a ברכה we knew it was the picture with a cookie

etc. Another game we played, each child got a turn to be blindfolded and guess

which one of their friend were singing the חנוכה songs.



The mitzvos the boys

shared with morah

Eliyahu and Ahron working on the hearing project

The boys enjoying the bingo game

:פרשה

Literature:

As we listened spellbound to several different books we read this week, we

tried using our language and short term recall skills to retell the stories we just

heard!

We are sending home our five senses folder for you to enjoy. Please remember to send it back on Monday!

Have a good Shabbos

Morah Hindy Meisels and Morah Hindy Grinblat

In this week’s parsha we learned how יעקב

went back to get the jugs that he left across

the river. We took this opportunity to talk

about בעל תשחית. We discussed how we can

be careful not to throw away food or lose and

ruin toys or other things we have. We also

discussed that one of the ways יעקב prepared

to meet עשו was by davening. By now we all

know how important תפילה is and that we can

ask ה‘ for anything we need!



:קריאה

This week we learned the letter

and the sound of the ‘ו. We

enjoyed feeling velcro on the ‘ו

and wearing the very straight ‘ו

vest!

Marching with our ‘ו Very straight Vest

Decorating our ‘ו Vest

Ahron acting out

the part of

Yaakov crossing

the river to

pickup the

leftover jugs


Grade 1 Rabbi Miller


ה“ב and שלום עליכם for another week here in כתה‘א in learning and מידות. Once again the sweet

sounds of טראפ fill the air as the boys are getting

excited and more familiar with the טראפ.

Areas of accomplishments for this week are:

כל זמן שהנשמה and discussion on טיישט :תפילה .ברכת התורה ”אשר בחר בנו“ and בקרבי,

of our red future banner י– We learned E :לשון תורה

and lessons on נקיבה/ זכר and יחיד/ רבים.

ספר קריאה נעימה As a class we hope to finish :קריאהnext week. Please make sure your son does his

!homework every day קריאה

.טו‘ started packet ,א‘- יד‘ Review of packets :מילים

.נביא שקר were about מצות This week :תרי“ג

ידעוני, מלך, איב, לשמע, להרג

Timeline: We learned about the רמב“ם and the

Spanish inquisition.

.ף,ץ We learned script letters :כתיבה

Work cycle: The boys are busy using the materials

helping them develop their skills and

understanding in the area of ,לשון התורה, מילים .גמטריא,קריאה

of many השקפה We discussed parsha and :פרשה

life lessons through parsha picture cards and

.מדרשים

Songs: רחם נא...,ואתה בנים שורו למלך

ן שבת,‘א גוט י.א. מיללער‘ ר

Avi working hard on his milim packets

Aron working on his Lashon

HaTorah booklet

Yosef Shalom celebrating his birthday with his classmates

Mazel Tov!


Now that Chanukah is one week closer on the calendar, it feels one week closer in our classroom

too.

The first grade boys are continuously working to strengthen their inner selves and to strengthen

their character. It’s part of their lingo and a part of themselves. They also continued to develop

their focus and emotional stamina. Boys are constantly being praised for communicating

positively in a respectful ,verbal fashion and for solutionizing in a practical and proactive manner.

Also, when it comes to math, first graders are encouraged to think, rather than just spitting back

information. Often you’ll hear me asking the boys not to give me the answer but to create an

appropriate equation, give an answer that has a number and a word, reflective work instead of

textbook facts. A lot of time was spent looking at a picture, then finding the appropriate number

bond and creating to addition and two subtraction equations for that. The boys also looked at

addition equations missing one addend, and then proceeded to turn that into a subtraction

equation which is inherently was.

In phonics, one group after learning all consonant diagraphs were introduced to punctuations.

They learned about the period, question mark, and exclamation point. Whenever a sentence just

says something it requires a period at the end. A sentence that asks needs a question mark and a

sentence that exclaims, that says something very strongly will get an exclamation point. In

addition, to learning and reviewing this they made sure to practice adjusting their voices to reflect

the kind of sentence they were reading or verbalizing. The other phonics group learned about

open-syllables words. They were challenged to understand why those words are called that and

why the boys were good at thinking of possible explanations. Afterwards they learned about old,

ost,ind, and ild. They learned about walking, talking vowels and caught on to the concept very

well.

We also had a conversation about the roots of a plant. We discussed its functions. We then learned

that the roots extend into the soil to same depth as the height of the plant. When we looked at a

plant we noticed that the roots indeed extended very deep, it felt very soft though, and the root

folded and tangled into each other when it was extracted from the soil and put into a flower pot.

One function of the root is that it keeps the plant in place by connecting the plant to the soil. We

then went further to explore what keeps us rooted to our source, and the boys came to realize that

our parents and teachers, our mesorah, is what keeps us connected and growing.

Have a great Shabbos, Morah Posner


Grade 1 Morah Posner


Grade 2 Rabbi Sabbagh


This week in Second Grade we celebrated two birthdays!

Congratulations to Josh Zimmer and Hillel Feder on your

eighth birthdays. Aside from watching you get taller, I am

watching you both grow so nicely in your Torah learning.

Some of our accomplishments this week:

Davening is going strong. We added :תפילה

to our davening this week. The transition ישתבח and יגדל

has been seamless.

.every day of the week פרק on a גירסא We did :גירסא

We worked on writing script letters neatly and :ּכתיבה

clearly and we focused on perfecting the script letter ט‘ .

In חומש: We started 'פרק יט this week

Reviewed hundreds of words together as a class :מילים

and in work cycles as well.

.Practice is the key to succeed in reading fluently :קריאה

These boys are practicing daily.

Timeline: Uncovering the fifth layer of many layers of the

timeline. This has been so amazing; it makes the Torah so

real and tangible!

We learned through the whole parsha with the :פרשה

picture cards and explained some bullet points for each

perek.

Each boy gets a packet of 10 mitzvos to study with :תרי“ג

picture cards and definitions of the mitzvos in a work

cycle. After studying them, the whole class listens to each

boy being tested as a review on all 70 in one day!

We began reading a detailed history and lead up to :חנוכה

the miracle of חנוכה. We began with Alexandar the

Great’s relationship with Shimon Hatzadik and learned all

the way through to the rise of the Macabim.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi Sabbagh

The boys enjoying a video presentation

Happy Birthday to Josh and Hillel


Grade 2 Miss Tenenbaum

Our daily calendar boy


Although the week really flew, we tried to pack in as much

as possible in the time allotted.

In math, as we learned about carrying over in two places:

once from the ones column to the tens column, the second

time from the tens to the hundreds column! We played a

fun game of “Big Shot,” which the boys were really excited

about... Don’t fall for any of Morah’s tricks, boys!

Our lab was very busy researching chemical reactions. We

mixed things together and watched what happened.

Sometimes, the mixture just curdled like spoiled milk and

sometimes a massive explosion happened. It was

fascinating to watch atoms switch partners with each

other.

We are continuing to work on letter blends and we’re

pretty good at it, but practice makes perfect.

Did you hear about the horse that survived the wildfires in

California, or about Einstein’s letter that was auctioned off

for $36,360?

Happy birthday, Josh! May you be only a source of nachas

for your parents.

Parents, I can’t wait to meet you all at Parent Teacher

Conferences, and present wonderful reports!

Gut Shabbos,

Miss Tenenbaum Experimenting with

liquids to see the

chemical reactions


Grade 3 Rabbi Borr

Yechiel and Asher learning together

Shlomo reviewing the laining


This week was so exciting in the third grade.

After last week's trip to the living torah

museum, we really felt an extra geshmak in

learning the timeline and giving context in

history for all the things we're learning.

Especially with Chanukah right around the

corner, it really helped us feel the Torah as

something that is real.

Also this week, we finished Parshas Mikietz!

We really learned this parsha with some extra

“oomph”! We read the pesukim, broke down

the pesukim into prefixes suffixes and

sharoshim in multiple ways, lained the

pesukim, chazzered the pesukim, and we

really came away feeling like we know the

parsha in our dreams!

The coming week should be really fun as we

get closer to Chanukah!

Have a wonderful Shabbos!

Rabbi Borr

Ariel reviewing the teitsh

Mordy and Yisroel Meir

chazzering b'chavrusa



MATH

We are going through all sorts of key words that may be

found in a problem-solving example. We had more

practice in differentiating between parts and wholes by

picking out which number is the part or whole and seeing

what we are missing. Then we would follow one of these

two equations to solve for the missing number.

1 part+part=whole

2 whole-part=part

Another two concepts we introduced to are more than or

less than. We learned the symbols for them and played a

really fun game using the more than or less than symbols.

We learned that key words are words in problem solving

examples which indicate to us what operation we should

use to get our answer.

CURSIVE WRITING

Third grade recieved two letters delivered to our door this

week! One Mr. Mordechai the Mailman distributed for

each boy a fruit bar for the letter ‘b’. Can you figure out

why? Then Yehoushua Stoklasa gave us the letter ‘f’ by

showing a fingerling to the class. Then third grade

practiced each letter carefully.

PHONICS

First the students were encouraged to think of what letters

make the long u sound. Then we gave them a few words to

sort it in the place where it belongs.

Although we had a short week, we tried to push in the

most learning we could!

Looking forward to meeting you Sunday at Parent אי''ה

Teacher Conferences!

Have a great Shabbos,

Miss Jacobowitz

Grade 3 Miss Jacobowitz

Playing a math game using the more

or less signs

Yehoshua and Mordecai introducing their

script letters


Intermediate Boys Rabbi Touretski


B”H we had another accomplishing week in our

IB class! In חומש: Upon completion of צו פרשת the boys

were awarded with a trip to a local grocery

store. Each one got to pick a small treat. Upon

return to the Yeshiva, the boys shared what

their take away from this פרשה was and

enjoyed the well-deserved nosh.

MAZAL TOV! We are looking forward to our

next סיום on פרשת שמיני in not that long

.בעז"ה

We are moving along in our Tefilla title

program. It deepens the boys’ understanding

of daily davening. Right now the boys are

going through the brachos of שמונה עשרה. In הלכה: We started going through halachos

and the history of chanuka. The boys are

looking forward to these special days with

great excitement.

Looking forward to another exciting week,

ה“בעז .

Gut Shabbos,

Rabbi Touretski

P.S. Looking forward to greeting all the

parents at the upcoming Parent Teacher

Conferences event this Sunday ה“בעז .

Working on

Hilchos Chanukah


Upper Boys Rabbi Gildengorn


It’s been just a blast of a week! Baruch Hashem the boys have continued their hard work

learning תורה. We are now coming to that important time of evaluations. This week we will

have assessed our גמרא and חומש skills. “It's good to test yourself and develop your talents and

ambitions as fully as you can and achieve greater success; but I think success is the feeling you get from a

job well done, and the key thing is to do the work.” – Peter Thiel

In גמרא: We continued to plunge deeper into the beautiful depths of מסכת מכות in פרק אלו הן It was a .בית מדרש The boys have continued to review and prepare for our exam in our .הגולין

remarkable קול תורה! The boys have been training hard in answering questions straight and

to the point. In שעור we call this the “Art of למדות“.

We also would like to thank Rabbi Skaist for running the “Gemara Gameshow” and testing

our boys. Thank you to Rabbi Selmar for “sweetening the deal”.

In חומש: We have continued our investigation of פרשת שלח. This week we have been

reviewing ג“פרק י and are preparing for our בחינה. It is inspiring to watch our boys work so

hard in dissecting and assimilating each bit of information within the חומש. I continue to

marvel at the rate these talented young men pick up analytical skills and the process of

appreciating a י“רש !אשרי מי שמעלו בתורה .

In מסילת ישרים: Based on popular demand we started to do a little מסילת ישרים before שבת each week. The goal is to bring about meaningful conversation and השקפה about what it

means to be a Jew. This past week we discussed the ever important questions: 1) Why are you

here? 2) Who are you? 3) What do you want in this life? 4) How do you plan on achieving those

things? Each week’s bit of the ל“רמח ‘s message comes with a short project. It has been an

honor and a privilege to see the depth and sincerity each boy wrote to those questions. If

your son does not mind please look at his written answers. We have not fully appreciated the

diamonds in our midst. May each תלמיד grow and connect to in a close and meaningful way!

Have a great שבת!

Rabbi Moshe Gildengorn


Upper Boys Rabbi Gildengorn



Melamed Academy is loaded with different

subjects each offering a unique learning

experience. In order to familiarize you with what

the children are learning and share the boys

experiences we will be interviewing one boy

each week on a topic that he has covered. This

week, we will be taking a look at math

with Benyamin Yasbin. I would like to note that

Ben has been doing exceptional work at

Melamed Academy; he stays focused and is able

to maximize his time.

In the Edmentum platform when you open math

there are lessons that divide up the topics. Ben has

been working on dividing fractions.

“When you open the lesson there are 21 visual audio

and video slides that begin with a very thorough

explanation of the concept. Next it brings real life

examples of how to apply the math concept

learned. There are some interactive examples

to solving problems and even a video working

through an example with slices of watermelon. After

going through tutorial and taking notes if necessary,

you are ready for the mastery test. You will only

be eligible to advance if you score above a 70%.”

-Based on an interview with Benyamin Yasbin.

Melamed Academy Rabbi Sabbagh

21 Slide Tutorial

Video with Watermelon Example

Mastery Test

Ben hard at work!!

the aliya update · hatorah booklet yosef shalom celebrating his birthday with his classmates mazel...

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