Dvar Torah
This week’s Parsha is Parashat Tetzaveh.
This week’s Parsha delineates the Kohen’s vestments, and the “furniture” of the Mishkan.
The Kohen Hedyot] the general Kohen had four garments;
Tunic, Turban, Sash and Breeches
The Kohen Gadol [high priest] had eight;
the four of the Kohen Hedyot and the following four;
Breastplate, Apron, Robe and Headplate.
The “furniture” consisted of the Aron Hakodesh, Menorah, Shulchan and Mizbeach
The Aron was where the broken Luchot [tablets] and a sefer Torah were placed.
On Yom Kippur The Kohen Gadol would go into the Kodesh Hakodashim [the holy of holies] to offer incense.
The Menorah was lit every evening. The Shulchan[table “” not found /]
was where the Lechem Hapanim [face bread] was placed and remained there the entire week, from Friday until Friday. Then it was distributed to the Kohanic families. There were many constant miracles in the Mishkan. Amongst them was that the bread remained fresh and warm the entire week.
It is important to remember and realize that the entire existence of the Mishkan was a mere 40 years in history yet the Torah gives FIVE long PArashot to go into detail about it. When contrasted to the creation of the entire universe;planet earth, mars, venus, jupiter etc and all the stars, sun and galaxies, the Torah only expends ONE HALF of a Parasha to describe it!
The lesson:
Hashem takes more pride in what we did for Him than what He maade for us!
Megilat Esther
In Megilat Esther, when Haman wants to malign us to King Achashveirosh he says “there is one nation that has their own laws”..
Let us remember and be proud of what even Haman the wicked recognized that we have our own set of laws i.e. the holy Torah.
Let us be proud and continue to keep it and uphold it.
Later in the story when Queen Esther prepares to plead on behalf of the Jews, she gives Mordechai the following instructions; “go gather all the Jews[to pray]”.
It is perhaps, the “gathering of the Jews” that plays a big part in thwarting our annihilation.
This is an important message; we Jews must “gather together”. Be there for eachother, care for each other, be nice to each other,and pray for each other.
Perhaps by doing so, we will merit another salvation, and have Moshiach come and build the third Beit Hamikdash!
Purim Sameach
Shabbat Shalom
Special Announcement
Thank you very, very much to the PTA for the Shalachmanot! Without our PTA, we wouldn’t have these wondrous memories to share!
Mr Steven Kaufman a beloved teacher in SIHA made sure to procure a ספר תורה to ensure that every student, boys and girls 5th-8th grade are able to hear פרשת זכור. Mr Kaufman brings the ספר תורה to school and reads it a few times to enable each student to be יוצא the מווה. All the students participated respectfully and appreciated the opportunity to fulfill this מצווה דאורייתא. Prior to reading, Mr. Kaufman gave a brief but clear explanation of the מצווה to give the students more of an appreciation for what they were about to partake in.
Mr. Kaufman reading from the Torah to the girls 7th and 8th Judaics classes
Programming News
Dear parents.
Wow, what a happy, fun, exciting, spirited week we had!! We all felt the exciting Purim spirit in the air!
The Carnival was amazing! We all had a wonderful time at the many fun booths, eating lots of Popcorn and Cotton Candy and earning tickets for the exciting carnival raffles. Everyone looked fantastic in their costumes – we could hardly figure out who was who!
Miss Esti and Miss.Dershowitz would like to congratulate all of the lucky winners from our Purim carnival
- Magnetic board – Sapir from 4B
- Pool table game – Sophie from 5th grade
- Jump rope – Ben from 3rd grade
- Light up mask – Lenny from 4A
- Puzzle box – Elinor from 1st grade
- Horse show game – Ethan from 6th grade
- Ring toss game – Ella from 4B
Major shout-out to the 8th graders who manned the booths and food machines and truly helped operate the carnival!!! We are so proud of you! Thanks for being amazing?
We really appreciate all the 8th grade parents who bought lots of stuff for the carnival booths! Thank you!
Contest update:
The competition is getting intense… Every time we make another person happy in any sort of way – smiling at them, giving a compliment, helping them, chatting, making someone feel good or giving someone a good laugh (in a nice way, of course!) – we add a sticker to our class’s big smiley face that’s hanging up on the wall.
It is unbelievable to see how many students are trying so hard to make others happy! Every class’s smiley faces are really truly filling up so much with stickers – there’s hardly any space for more! Lots of classes even had to come to us for more stickers?
We are so proud of you all! Keep it up – at home and in school!
Happy Purim????
Best regards,
Miss Dershowitz
Kriah
Miss Esti would like to congratulate Josh of 4B for working very hard on pronouncing the words on the Hebrew months. Great job Josh!! We are so proud of you!
Great job to Ariana of 4B for doing an amazing job at her hebrew script letters .
Thanks , Miss Esti
Judaics
Kindergarten and First Grade
We had a great week in Kindergarten and First Grade Judaics as we got ready for Purim! We decorated hamentaschen, made graggers, colored or wrote purim stories and made our very own purim puppets! We also learnt about the 4 mitzvot of Purim and can’t wait to show our families all we know and all we have made! Purim Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!
Second Grade
We had another exciting,fun filled week in 2nd grade. Practicing our reading skills while learning all about Purim in our Purim Booklets. The children all loved the carnival and enjoyed playing Bingo in class with the vocabulary words they learned for Purim. They can’t wait to celebrate the festive holiday. They know all 4 mitzvot of the day.
The 2nd grade received their siddurim in order to practice using them and be ready to receive them G-d willing in the spring with our families present. Rabbi Kuritsky told the students an inspiring story which conveyed the message of the importance of prayer and faith.
Have a Joyous Purim and Shabbat Shalom!
5th and 6th Boys
This week we had the grand S.I.H.A carnival in honor of Purim!
All the boys had a great time going to all the booths and enjoying the general happy atmosphere.
We did a special review of all the Mitzvot of Purim, which are 1: Listening to the purim story read from a Megillah 2:Mishloach Manot 3:Monetary gifts fts to the poor,
and 4:having a special party in honor of Purim.
We also told the Purim story with special effects.
Happy Purim and Shabbat Shalom!
7th and 8th Boys
This week 7th and 8th grade had a fabulous week of learning and discussing Kashrut.
We also went through the “Purim story” .
We began Hilchot Tzitzit with the hope and plan that boys will be motivated to wear them daily. Rabbi Kuritsky treated the boys to a “7-11” outing in acknowledgement of their participation.
Rabbi Kuritsky gives each boy in his 7th and 8th grade their individual box of Mishloach Manot, packed with Haman Tash, “spring pop” oodles and a can of coke, by Mrs. Kuritsky and daughters. The boys enjoyed it!
Miss Dershowitz’s 5th and 6th grade AMAZING PURIM PLAY
Rabi Kuritsky’s Great Grandmother visits the 8th grade’s fabulous carnival
Leam, Doron and Noah guarding the school’s Mishloach Manot
Yona the black dragon
Elementary School
Kindergarten
This week was a busy but super fun week in kindergarten! Kindergarten had so much fun at the Purim Carnival. They were so excited to wear their costumes, they loved all of the games they played at the carnival, and the children enjoyed eating all of the treats they won. After the carnival they played musical chairs while listening to Purim songs. They also celebrated the 100th day of school this week! They did fun math activities all day on Thursday to celebrate 100 days of kindergarten. They made a necklace with 100 beads, put 100 pompoms on a monster, made a gumball machine by painting 100 gumballs inside their machine, they went on a scavenger hunt to find 100 marbles that were hidden all over the classroom, they had a contest to see how many things they can do in 100 seconds, they listened to a story about 100 days of kindergarten, and they made the number 100 using cookies and pretzels. The class also learned how to read and spell words with blends at the end of the word, they did a super fun science experiment to discover which items in the classroom are magnetic, they learned about the community helpers that keep our community safe, and they played games to practice creating subtraction number sentences.
First Grade
The fabulous first graders had a great week. We learned about different types of weather in Science, and we measured objects in pounds and ounces. However, the highlight of the week was the SIHA Purim Carnival. Students eagerly entered the fun-filled gymnasium. The first graders dressed in costumes portraying characters from their favorite superheroes to beautiful princesses. They played games and danced to the festive music. Students loved the cotton candy and popcorn! As they left the Carnival with their bags full of treats, it was evident from their smiling faces that a good time was had by all.
Second Grade
This week in math, the second-graders finished their math unit on money by taking a test. They all did great! They started a new unit on time and learned about telling time to the hour. In ELA, the second-grade finished a grammar unit on action verbs and helping verbs. They also continued to read The BFG and have been doing a great job at identifying character traits for the main characters! In social studies, the students learned about producers and consumers. They read about some of people’s first producers and how they made bread. On Tuesday, the second-grade had a blast at the Purim Carnival!
Third Grade
This week Grade 3 students began to focus on action verbs while they also continued to review the parts of speech we have already learned, such as (various types of) nouns, adjectives, conjunctions, and prepositions. During math they began their unit review and continued to work on their multiplication skills. During Social Studies, they began to explore the capital of Mexico and how to utilize (and create) a grid map. In Russian they are continuing to learn more vocabulary relating to the letter Л л and И и.
Fourth Grade
4A
This week in math students converted decimals to fractions, fractions to decimals, ordered decimals, compared decimals, and added and subtracted decimals.
In ELA students identified possessive pronouns and contraction made from pronouns and verbs.
We finished our suspenseful chapter book Walk Two Moons.
In Social Studies we started a new chapter on the Great Lakes State.
4B
4B had a really fun week! We had a blast at the Purim Carnival, hosted by our very own 8th graders! We played games, ate candy, and listened to music, all in fabulous costumes! But it wasn’t all fun and games this week! Academically, we are doing lots of test prep in ELA. In math we are learning how to find fractions of whole numbers, and practicing word problems with fractions.
Fifth Grade
Greetings and salutations!
This has been a less-busy but still fun week. In grammar we practiced with prefixes and suffixes as well as abbreviations. In writing we reviewed text structure as well as the authors point of view across multiple texts. We read about the Boston Tea Party from three different perspectives.
In social studies, the students worked don their Olmec head project. I look forward to what the sculptures will look like when completed!
Middle School
Middle School ELA and Social Studies
6th Grade
This week was a less-busy but still exciting one!
In writing, we discussed how the structure of a poem can be used to determine the theme of a poem. We read some wonderful poems and talked about theme. We also continued our novel study of Bud, not Buddy. In grammar, we learned about subject and object pronouns.
In social studies, the students learned about three important philosophies – Confucianism, Daoism, and legalism. We had some amazing class discussions!
7th Grade
7th Grade had a busy week! In writing, we discussed the structure of plays and how plays show characterization, plot, and theme. We read excerpts of a play in class and wrote beautiful paragraphs. In test prep, we continued working on short answers. In reading, students continued their novel study of Farewell to Manzanar.
In social studies, students continued learning about the administration of president Andrew Jackson. We discussed the market revolution and the change from a more agrarian economy to one that’s more market-driven and based on manufacturing and trade. Students had wonderful time discussing this era in our history! Mrs. Hazen would especially like to commend Loam for his class participation!
8th Grade
8th graders had a very busy week, although it wasn’t academic! This week has been all about the holiday, Purim, and 8th graders worked very hard to create and run the carnival for the younger grades.
In ELA, we reviewed the structure of a poem. Students also wrote their own poems about an important character trait. They continued their novel study of the Outsiders.
In social studies, we triumphantly finished World War I and started discussing the effects of World War I on the world and Europe. We also discussed the Russian Revolution in particular and how the world changed after that event.
Middle School Math
5th grade finished their unit on area and perimeter of quadrilaterals and circles.
Middle School Science
7th Grade Students
So a little story: Last Friday it snowed and rained and snowed again, making the snow quite heavy. As a result of cleaning snow off the roof of my daughter’s vehicle, I hurt my shoulder and my arm, so much so that I was absent on Monday and could barely lift my arm. When I came in on Tuesday, I told the 7th graders why I was absent and what was happening. At the end of my story, I asked them to say a prayer for me, so that I can feel better. Well needless to say, the next day my arm was approximately 50% better. So I asked them who prayed for me last night, because I feel relief in the pain level, Noah said, “Me, Mrs. G., I prayed for you!” THANK YOU, NOAH for your heart elt prayers as they were truly needed and I physically felt the result of your prayers, I couldn’t thank you enough. So sweet :):)
Over the next couple of weeks students will be learning how our body systems function to maintain homeostasis. Students just finished up the Immune System and they all did well on their test. This week we are discovering the benefits and necessity of our skin. Students will be able to distinguish between the epidermis and the dermis, identify the functions of the skin and the role it plays to protect us from various pathogens and environmental toxins.
8th Grade Students
Shout out to all staff and students that assisted with the Purim Carnival. Carnival was a big success!!!! Special thank you to Ms. Ety, Mrs. Belli and Mrs. Dinar. Thank you to all of the parents for purchasing items necessary for their child’s booth at the carnival and any monetary donations that made this event possible.
NEEDED: 8th Grade Parents: Recycle Cash-In for our 8th Grade Recycling program. Our 8th graders started a school wide Recycling Program, to offset some of the 8th grade costs and end of the year celebrations. However, we need your help. Students have been quite diligent in their collection and ensuring that our recycle bins are emptied, as we continue to bring in more bottles. Here is where you come in! Students will need a weekly volunteer, rotated among you, to take your child to the supermarket to cash in the bottles. The bottles are bagged in big recycling bags and the STUDENT needs to “CASH IN THE BOTTLES.” Mrs. Lavy did the first big bag, thank you Mrs. Lavy. Please reach out to me if you need assistance, otherwise perhaps in your 8th Grade Group Chat you can create some type of weekly schedule to “CASH IN.” Please let me know how I can be of further assistance.
8th Grade will be investigating how humans are complex organisms that maintain a narrow set of internal conditions through a system of feedback and communication mechanisms between multiple organ systems. In this unit, students will explore how body systems interact to effectively monitor and respond to both internal and external environmental changes. Students complete both Making Connections (a NY State required lab) and a human thermoregulation laboratory, both of which focus on skills of experimental design.