Welcome to Eighth Grade!
Weekly Newsletter for the week of 9/22/2023
Judaic Studies
Advanced Middle School Judaics
In our Advanced Mishnah Class, we have been learning about Rosh Hashanah and why we didn’t blow the shofar when Rosh Hashanah coincides with Shabbat. We also learned who instituted this edict and why he did so. We then began discussing Yom Kippur and learned the differences between a Torah Fast Day, like Yom Kippur, and a Rabbinic Fast Day, like Tzom Gidalya, which was last Monday.
In our Advanced Chumash Class we began in the beginning of the year with the story of Abram and his discovery of Hashem and monotheism. We last discussed his valiant and heroic mission to rescue his nephew Lot, after he was taken captive. We then discussed why he refused any of the spoils of war and the reason why he didn’t want to accept them. Now we have moved onto the story of Hagar and her birth of her son Yishmael.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Dr. Ehrlich
Middle School Judaics
This week we covered Parashat Ha’azenu in great detail.
We learned that Prior to Moshe rabeinu’s “Niftar” = “exempt” [ask your children about this word, please] passing, he wrote a song called “Sheeras Ha’azenu” . In this “song” he compares the Torah to rain.
We can not live without rain.
We can not live wothout Torah.
Please see the email in which I enclosed all the info.
We learned about the 5 Inuyim = discomforts that we [over bar/bat Mitzva] practice on Yom Kipur;
No eating
No drinking
No annointing
No bathing
No wearing leather shoes
[There is 1 more for adults (who are married)].
We discussed and acted out, asking forgiveness from eachother prior to Yom Kipur.
We learned some important saying/ideas from Pirkei Avot i.e. “Speak little and do a lot” Please discuss
On Friday, Rabbi Kuritsky gave out bagels for all to practice; washing,saying bracha of Aln’telat Aydayim and Hamotze
Shabbat Shalom
Have an easy and meaningful fast.
Bon Voyage to our favorite twins Sarina and Ariella
I sent home 10 pages about Yom Kippur. Please read and discuss.
Rabbi Kuritsky
Secular Studies
In ELA, we learned about parallel construction in writing. We discussed how parallelism improves the way our sentences flow, and looked at some examples. Then we revised sentences in class to create parallel construction.
We also continued on our vocabulary enrichment journey by learning ten new words and finding myriad ways to use them. Kudos goes again to Sima, the best Parrot Ever!
In writing, we learned about Creative Nonfiction, and about how writing personal narratives is more than just recounting events in our lives – it is about creating a meaningful narrative that explores an aspect of our personality and shares it with the world. Students came up with great ideas for their narratives. I truly look forward to what all of them will write about, but I especially want to look forward to Avigdor’s narrative. He has decided to write about fasting, and about what fast days mean for him!
In reading, our literature circles continued to work on their novels. They are all finishing their novels next week! We discussed symbolism and motif, and wrote beautiful literary analysis journals about the symbols and motifs in their novels. The students are also creating artwork with their chosen symbols, and will host a special booktalk next week!
In science, our honors class learned about mitosis and meiosis, DNA and RNA, and about how cell division works. We also started our chapter on plant reproduction by learning about mosses! We created a spinning wheel study aid to help us learn the steps of mitosis and meiosis.
Our regular science class learned about rocks and minerals! We hosted a mini-rock-lab at the start of our unit, in which students got to examine and handle four different stones. They noted their observation in a log and then discussed a hypothesis for how these different rocks came to be so different! We then learned about minerals, and started our unit on igneous rocks!
Mrs. Slonim
