בס"ד Maimonides Jewish Day School 6612 SW Capitol Highway Portland, OR 97239 Phone: 503.9777850 office@maimonidesjds.org Principal s News Dear MJDS Parents, Parent teacher conferences sign up is ready. Please CLICK HERE to register. Note that the conferences are optional, but if you have concerns/questions about your child/ren progress PLEASE make sure to discuss these with the teachers. Please sign up by writing your name on the desired time slot. If you would like Morah Ariana to be present during your conference, please write her name in the time slot as well. Friday, Iyar 9 th, 5773 April 19 th, 2013 Upcoming Events Thursday, April 25 th Optional Parent teacher conferences. Dismissal 11:45 Sunday, April 28 th - Wheels of Unity in the Community. Please CLICK for further information. Dismissal times: Our teachers are making and extra effort to dismiss students on time. Please make sure that you pick up your child/ren on time: Monday Thursday 3:45pm and Friday 2:30pm. Professional Development days dismissal is at 3:00pm. NEW!!! You can now pay tuition through PAYPAL. Please submit your payment. 1. Click on the transfer tab, 2. Send someone money (use office@maimonidesjds.org as the email address) Or CLICK HERE to pay. Please feel free to call the office if you have any questions. Please continue collecting your Box Top for Education coupons. These are found on a variety of items (Kleenex, cereal, ect). We are currently collecting the Intent to Enroll forms for the next academic year. Please fill in the attached form and bring it back to school no later than Thursday, April 25 th. You can also download the file HERE.
Important dates to remember: Thursday, April 25 th Optional Parent teacher conferences, CLICK to sign up. Dismissal 11:45am. Sunday, April 28 th Lag B Omer community event: Wheels of Unity in the Community. Please CLICK for further information (see attached flyer at the end of the file). Candle lighting: 7:43pm Shabbat Shalom, Mrs. Devora Wilhelm & MJDS
Kindergarten and 1 st Grade News Dear Parents, What a fabulous week of learning this has been! Thanks to all of you and your children for all of the refuah sh layma s I think they helped! We are continuing our focus on houses with a direct link to geometry. The design of their houses lets us know what people value Architects are people that design houses Architects make drawings of their ideas for builders to follow Frank Lloyd Wright was a famous American architect. He designed a house built around a waterfall called Fallingwater. There is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oregon! Making the drawings blueprints is challenging! Architects use many geometric shapes in their designs we are able to recognize and name them
Coming up.we ll be designing environments for our houses, writing about them, and creating updated models. We will be Skyping with a real architect whose website we ve visited (my cousin, Sigrid Miller Pollin). We are preparing questions to ask her and will also be prepared with appropriate Skype manners. In Literacy.they just won t stop reading!!! The children are reading to themselves, reading to others, listening to others read to them, begging me for just one more book! you name it! This is certainly one of the great joys of working with children of this age. Thank you for entrusting your precious, brilliant children to me for general studies.
We did a phonics focus for several days on reading and spelling words with the diphthong /ou/. Sometimes it s made with ou, and sometimes with ow. When o is next to u or w, he gives them a pinch and they say /ou/! Discipline.we have a new all class stars goal 50 stars and then we can make challah! It is highly motivating. Children are working on: Listening and doing what the Morah asks the first time Using kind words Not arguing back with the Morah Being a helper in our classroom Shabbat Shalom, Morah Sharon
In Jewish studies Dear Parents, We started our week by learning about the special gift that Hashem gave us, Eretz Yisroel. We visited the four holy cities as well as other cities in Eretz Yisroel and learned 2 facts about each city. Thank you Morah Ariana for arranging such a great program. Together as a class we are getting ready for Lag Bomer by learning about Ahavat Yisroel. We learned the story of Akiva the Shepard who becomes the great Rabbi Akiva. Rabbi Akiva tells us about how important it is to love your fellow as yourself. His students knew this as Rabbi Akiva was their teacher. We are going to focus on respecting others at all times and treating them as we want to be treated. Kindergarten has been practicing their reading with vowel shva. We made a board game counted the shva in the story and more fun things. First Grade learned Pessukim 9-11, about how Hashem creates dry land, The students have been working diligently and are learning and gaining many skills. They also learned to form the script letter Tet. In Parsha this week we learned what Kedoshim really means. As Jews, we are holy through doing the Torah and Mitzvos. We discussed how Parshas Kedoshim has many different mitzvot for example, honoring our parents, leaving the corners of our fields for the poor, judging our friends favorably and not giving bad advice. The kids are so intelligent, and we had very meaningful conversations about the many mitzvot. Ms. Wilhelm Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom, Morah Simi 2nd-5th Grade General Studies News Dear Parents, We are continuing our study of Lewis and Clark. It is fun and a great way to utilize many curriculum areas in a project based unit. Each student is keeping a journal where they are using their creative writing skills and learning about geography, mapping, science, the people and animals on the journey, creating peace medals, and making mock leather artwork. Ask your child about Seaman. (Hint: Seaman is not a man!) Last week I explained our new activity about selecting students of the week. Our first recipients were Noah for the 4/5 th graders, and Chaya from the 2/3 rd grade classroom. The students selected these two because of their ability to show positive leadership skills. We are working hard in areas of character development. I appreciate the support from parents helping us to instill respect and empathy in our children. They are, after all, our future. Please know how important your involvement is. The earlier in a child s educational process parent involvement begins, the more powerful the effects. The most effective forms of parent involvement are those which engage parents in working directly with their children on learning activities at home.
Research shows that when parents are involved students have higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates, better school attendance, increased motivation, lower rates of suspension, decreased use of drugs and alcohol, fewer instances of violent behavior. The weather folks are predicting a beautiful sunny week coming up. Let s hope they are right! Have great weekend. Karen Murray 2nd-3rd Grade Jewish Studies News Dear Parents, This week started off on a great note with a special Yom Ha atzmaut program. The children explored many special cities in Israel. It was both a fun and educational program, culminating in an Israeli lunch that the 2nd and 3rd graders helped prepare with Morah Ariana. Thanks Morah Ariana! We continued on with our week learning Parsha, Pirkei Avos, and Chumash as well as practicing our kriyah and kesivah skills.
In Parsha, we were surprised to hear that, just like last week, this week we read two Parshiyot, both of which are filled with different mitzvos. Since most of the mitzvos that we are able to fulfill now, when there is no Bais Hamikdosh, are in the Parsha of Kedoshim, we focused on that Parsha. We looked at the root of the word Kedoshim and realized it was Kadosh which means holy. What does being holy mean? We made a synonym tree and came up with words such as special, set aside, and pure. We were then given different occupations, such as firemen, police officers, and the mayor and asked what the common denominator is with them all. We discovered that their title comes with a lot of responsibility. We compared that to us, the Jews. We are a holy nation and that title comes along with much responsibility. How do we live up to our name? Together as a class we volunteered examples of different mitzvos, many of which are written in our Parsha this week. We discussed each mitzvah and shared personal experiences. We noticed that many mitzvos tie into one central mitzvah, Ahavas Yisroel. We also noted how even when we are doing regular mundane activities such as eating, getting dressed, and sleeping, we as Jews do it in a special way. Just by walking down the street you can spot a Jewish boy since he has his payos and a modestly dressed Jewish girl can make a big Kiddush Hashem. In addition, our clothes don t have shatnez (wool and linen mixed) and we are warned from getting a tattoo. We discussed how Jews respect our bodies and treat it nicely. We also respect others, especially the elderly. We then went around the class and everyone wrote one positive quality each of their classmates have. The Mishna that we learned this week during our Pirkei Avos lesson also tied into the Parsha of this week. To introduce it, we played game in class that the students really enjoyed. The children were given the word engine. They were asked to jump up when the sentence the teacher said was a true one. For example, the teacher said If there is no engine, there is no water and the students remained sitting. Then the teacher went on, If there is no engine, there are no apples and so forth, until the teacher said a correct statement such as If there is no engine, there is no car to which all the students jumped up. (This was also a great exercise in listening!) We continued the game using many different words and ended off with the true statement, If there is no derech eretz, there is no Torah. We read the Mishna inside (Perek Shlishi, Mishna Yud Zayin) If there is no derech eretz there is no Torah and if there is no Torah, there is no derech eretz. We discussed how the Torah is what taught us to be respectful and being respectful of those around you is the only way one can really learn Torah properly. In Chumash 2 nd Grade: We learned Passukim Yud Gimmel through Yud Tes. In addition to practicing our shoroshim, prefix, and suffix skills, we also delved into the content of the Pessukim themselves. It was fascinating to learn from Avraham how to be a good host. We discussed why Hashem had to tell Avraham the news of
Sedom s upcoming destruction, the greatness of the bracha Hashem bestowed onto Avraham, and the reason behind it. Looking forward to a great week of Chumash learning next week. 3 rd Grade: Mazal tov for finishing Perek Chof Zayin this week! We are now mavens on the brachos that Yackov and Eisav received, how they compare and contrast, and what each of their reactions was. We are building up our shoroshim vocabulary and can t wait to start a new Perek on Monday. We have been working hard in our Alef Champ program and are glad to see results. Congratulations to Shmuel Dovid and Jacob for passing Orange Level and Chaya for passing Green Level this week! Additional kriyah has been sent home daily so your child can get lots of much practice. Please remember to turn in the homework given Wednesday on its due date: Monday, 4/22 In addition, please remember to send tzedakah with your child to school. Have a good Shabbos Moshiach Now! Ms. Zwiebel 4th and 5th Grade Jewish Studies In Yehadus this week, we started getting ready for Lag Baomer by learning what the Passuk Vehavta Leracha Kamocha really means. How is it possible to love someone just like yourself? The only way to do that is to focus on what every Jew has that really is just like ours; our neshama. Since every Jew has a neshama equal to each other, we are able to love them just as much. We discussed the idea from the Ba al Shem Tov that a Jew can come down into the world for 70-80 years just to do ONE favor for someone else! We enjoyed hearing different stories portraying this idea. It brought the importance of Ahavas Yisroel to a whole new level. In Parsha, we learned the intricate halachos of Yom Kippur in the Bet Hamikdash as well as what it means to be holy. Parshas Kedoshim lists many mitzvos and they all serve the same purpose; to keep us, the Jews, special and holy. In addtion, every time before we do an action, we need to ask ourselves, Will this act serve for a good purpose? Will Hashem be pleased? Kadosh also means separate. Just like a real gem is kept separate and treated better than fake jewels, so too we have special mitzvos to keep us separate from the nations. In Pirkei Avos, we learned six mishnayot from Perek Shlishi (the third chapter). First, we read them inside and practiced our kriyah and translation skills. We then discussed the details of each one. The boys were fascinated by the concept that if you don t say any words of Torah by a table, it s as if it s a dead table. We also spoke about the idea that although Hashem knows what will happen, we still have free choice. We also reiterated the concept of respect through the mishna, without torah there is no respect and without respect there is not torah. Chumash: Congrats to us all, on completing Perek Mem Gimmel. It was a long perek, but we pulled through, and learned many interesting new facts about Yosef, and the Shvatim's "business" in Mitzraim. Although this is a story which we all know from when we were young, learning it from the words of the pessukim, together
with Rashi's and other commentaries' explanation, brought these stories to a whole new level. Many of the pessukim were done orally, and those that we did focus on inside, were then decoded by the boys in their decoding booklets. Some of the points that we focused on this week were Yosef's change of "tactics" the second time the Shevatim come down to Mitzraim. As opposed to being harsh and mean, he approaches them in a nice way, inviting them over for a meal! Their reactions. Yosef's emotions, and the challenge of keeping Torah and MItzvos for Yosef in Mitzraim. Some questions to ask your kids: How do we know that Yosef kept Shabbos? From where do we learn that it's better not to publicly announce bad news? Mitzriim could not eat a meal together with Ivriim? Binyomin longed for his brother Yosef? Rashi of course helped us answer many of these questions. Boys will be tested next week, please encourage them to review the perek with the help of their booklets over the weekend. Good Shabbos Moshiach Now Mrs. Rivkin and Ms. Wilhelm