This week’s Parsha discusses a world gone awry that needed a reset. In order to avert bringing a flood, Hashem wanted the world to repent and change their behavior. He had Noach spend decades building his ark as a public relations campaign to encourage repentance by the rest of the world. Yet no one wanted to hear the truth of Noach’s message to change their behavior.
This brings to mind the following story. There was a cruise ship passing by a small island and everyone on deck was able to see an emaciated disheveled man shouting on top of his lungs and frantically waving his hands.
“Who is that man on the Island?” a passenger asked the captain.
“I have no idea,” the captain replied. “But every year when we pass by, this guy goes totally crazy!”
Often in life we experience events which can serve as a wake-up call, but we have to be tuned in to hear the message. The events of the past few months have shown that we human beings are not in control of our world. It is our job to listen to that message and strengthen our reliance on Hashem.
Rabbi Eliezer Stewart
Judaic Studies Supervisor
Staten Island Hebrew Academy
Dear Parents! This week, we are premiering our new SIHA Weekly podcast! Produced by the 7th grade, this will contain Birthday Wishes, special mentions, and some lighter news. Enjoy!
Special Feature!
Interview with Ms. Regina, our fearless Nachas Lead Specialized Teacher!
Tyler and Ariella: How is your week going?
Ms. Regina: So far so good this week! Since I work with my students either one on one or in small groups, it’s easy for them to make progress quickly. It’s so much fun watching my students learn new things and understand things they may not have if they didn’t come to my room.
Tyler and Ariella: What are the students learning this week?
Ms. Regina: A few of my students are learning the alphabet and putting together 3 letter words, as well as practicing some sight words. Some of my older students are learning geometry and multiplication. We are also reading a novel and working on a nonfiction project about lions.
Tyler and Ariella: Are there any special events coming?
Ms. Regina: The kindergarten will soon be having their alphabet party to celebrate completing their learning of the alphabet. So I’ll be celebrating with them and my students.
Tyler and Ariella: Is there anyone who did extra good this week that you would like to commemorate?
Ms. Regina: Honestly, there is something amazing I can say about every one of my students. Every week they each progress toward accomplishing a major goal. It’s hard to pick out just one or two moments.
Tyler and Ariella: What do you do in your free time with your students?
Ms. Regina: During the school day when there is extra time, the students play games in my room like jenga or we watch movies/shows if it’s not nice enough to go outside. When they’re doing those inside activities, I sit in my comfy wheely chair and do absolutely nothing. Sometimes the kids are so tired, they sit on the couch and fall asleep!
When I’m not in school, I enjoy watching movies, cooking, and crocheting
Thank you for reading
Sincerely,
Ariella Shindelman and Tyler Nieves
Judaics Curriculum
Kindergarten and First Grade
Wow! What a great week we had in kindergarten Judaics.This week we learned about the letter dated. We learned a special song for the letter and can even twist our bodies into a daled!
In first grade Judaics, we have finished learning all the letters of the aleph bet. We are so excited to start learning to read next week!
This week in both kindergarten and first grade judaics we learned about the Torah. We know that Torah is more precious than everything! More than all the gold and silver and money in the world, more than all the candy and chocolate in the world, and more than all the toys in the world! We then began to learn about the different parts of the shul. We know that the Sefer Torah is kept inside the Aron Kodesh. We enjoyed watching a video of Shuls and spotting all the Aron Kodesh. This week we also learned about Parshas Noach! We learned how Hashem brought the mabul and only Noach and his family and animals in the table lived. We made a special mabul in a bottle project that we can’t wait to show our families.
Shabbat Shalom!
Morah Kaplan
Second Grade
We had a productive busy week in 2nd grade. In Ivrit we learned that if a word ends with a Chet and the patach vowel is under the chet. It is an exception letter and it is pronounced ach as in Noach. We learned all about Parshat Noach,ask your 2nd grader how long it took to build the ark and how we say ark in hebrew. We reviewed all the days of the week in Hebrew and the children all did well on the Breishit Parsha Quiz. Shabbat Shalom
Morah Spiegel
Third Grade
This week we started our first Dikduk lesson on prefixes.
Students also mastered the days of the week and some are already able to write the date in Hebrew independently.
In parsha we learnt the story of Noach and the value of small things. We discussed Hashem’s presence in the world. We also learnt about the rainbow and the special blessing we say when we see it as it is a reminder of Hashem’s promise to never send a flood again.
Shabbat shalom
Mrs Ivry
Fourth Grade
What an adventurous Parahah tale we have this week, we listened ,wide-eyed to the tale of the legendary flood and the miraculous survival of Noach, his family and animals. Ofcourse, our Hebrew letters are being reviewed and reviewed and then reviewed some more. We are still waiting to establish a finalized Judaic studies teacher plan and we appreciate your understanding and patience as we wait to gain more clarity.
Morah Toba
Middle School Boys
This week we reviewed comprehensive overview of Chumash and general knowledge. We continued our study of Shma and we began learning about the significance and the laws of Tefillin. We also learned Rashi in this week’s Parsha of Noach.
Rabbi Stewart
This week we continued our journey through the Mishna. With some pumpkins and grapes thrown in! (Ask your son) We also had the opportunity to discuss many ideas central to Judaism. Looking forward to next week,
Rabbi Levy
Middle School Girls
We had a great week!
We continued on in Chumash Shemot, asking questions and learning Rashi as well. We had our weekly Chumash quiz on Thursday. The girls really know the Pesukim. We learned how Hashem loves us so much and He therefore counted us again although He just counted us. We learned a “Hashem loves _______…” song that we sing each day. We had our biweekly lesson on Jewish law, learning about Modeh Ani – the prayer we say as soon as we wake up thanking God for giving us another day of life.
We learned the weekly Parsha, Parshat Noach. God gave the people so many chances to repent but they didn’t and He brought a flood to the world. Noach and His family were saved in the ark (Teivah).
We began our Middot scrapbook. We learned the Middot song and decorated our scrapbook covers beautifully!
Have a great Shabbat and weekend!
Looking forward to another wonderful week.
Best Regards,
Miss Dershowitz
We were blessed with another wonderful week on our “Island of discoveries”, AKA our classroom. Thanx to Noga Sayag and Yaffa Bareket, we celebrated Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan at the beautiful pond down the block from our school with the best Rosh Chodesh spirit ever! They put on the most adorable, scorpion-themed show, as the symbol of this month of Cheshvan is a scorpion. We enjoyed our 7/11 slurpees, especially because the setting of their show was 7/11 (where else?). We began Beur Tefilah- translation of prayer. Familiarizing ourselves with the literal and deeper meaning of the words of the Brachot that we say before we eat is our first goal. Saying “Baruch” is a prime time to reflect on the idea that it is Hashem that is the source of all blessings in our lives. We finished the first Perek- chapter of Parshat Shemot in Chumash class, Mazal tov to us!! We are looking forward to celebrating by taking a nice outing.. stay tuned. We are totally sea sick from hearing all about Noach and his family’s legendary boat/ark ride in this week’s Parsha, by the way. Oh, and our beautifully decorated Shabbat journals are ready to be filled with thoughts on shabbat. We talk all about it on Erev Shabbat, Friday as we listen to Zemirot, which are songs that are traditionally sung at Shabbat meals. Things are never boring on this island.
Morah Toba
Elementary School
Kindergarten
This week kindergarten finished learning all of the short vowel sounds. They learned why the vowels are so important and they sang songs about the vowels. They also learned how to make cvc words plural. They played fun games to practice their decoding skills. They have been working hard and they are doing an excellent job. In math they had fun sorting and classifying all different types of objects. They learned how to tell the difference between left and right by dancing and singing songs. In science they learned all about the water cycle. They did a really fun experiment to learn about clouds and precipitation. In social studies they began making their all about me book. They are discovering that while everyone may like different things they all have things in common with each other. We talked about the importance of being a kind person and friend. When they do 100 acts of kindness they will earn an ice cream party. Aaron Elkaiev and Ethan Sandler have been doing an amazing job this week seeing friends that need help and finding ways to help them.
Third Grade
This week 3rd graders continued to explore different types of communities. They completed their written T-Charts on each character from the book The City Kid and the Suburban Kid, as well an illustrated T-Chart comparing the urban and suburban community they explored through the book. In Math, students have been reviewing what we had covered thus far in preparation for their first math test next week. Considering how well they have been doing on their previous quizzes, I have no doubt that they will do well. In English, they had completed another chapter quiz of our class novel and are ready to move forward to find out what other shenanigans Fudge gets into. During their Grammar lessons, students had focused on identifying the complete subject. Next week, students will be presenting the poems they have been learning throughout the week…although some couldn’t wait and had already presented with days to spare.
Miss Sasha
Fourth Grade
This week in math we started a new unit called Operations On Whole Numbers. We used different strategies to add and subtract numbers and solve word problems with the use of bar models.
In ELA we had our first test and started writing a personal narrative on a funny event that happened in our life. In Social Studies we started chapter 2 that discusses the features that form regions and why regions are important.
Ms. Shats
4b is having a great week! We are reviewing for our Math test on the four operations, place value, and PEMDAS. In social studies we are learning about the different climate regions of the United States, and how the different climate regions affect the population in that region. We also started reading “The Tale of Despereaux.” I would like to commend Ariana Guz for doing an excellent job on her current events assignment! Her summary was very detailed and well written, and it conveyed all of the vital information in her article about COVID-19 and its effect on NYC schools. If my class has free time we like to go outside and get some fresh air. Some of us enjoy throwing the football around. We are having a great week!
Mr. F
Fifth Grade
In ELA they learned about complete subjects and predicates as well as simple subjects and predicates.
They practiced reading and writing with scientific and technical texts.
And finally, we finished reading Maniac Magee. I’m looking forward to our essay next week!
In Math the 5th grade learned and reviewed the order of operations, the distributive property of math, and practiced their mental math skills.
In social studies the 5th grade learned about the diversity of people inhabiting North America. They also learned about our neighbor to the north, Canada. Lastly, they continued to work on their Native American lap book project.
I would also like to give a shout out to Idan Koldin for doing a great job during math.
Ms. Tatic
Middle School
Middle School ELA
In 6th grade, students finished reading Fish in A Tree. We had some wonderful class discussions, and wrote a journal about our novel. Students also learned about how to use anecdotes in their writing. We read nonfiction articles, and made some awesome inferences! In grammar, we revised wordy sentences, and learned new vocabulary words. Mrs. Hazen would like to commend Noam Tisona for being a wonderful student!
In 7th grade, the students continued reading The Great Gilly Hopkins in class. In grammar, we learned about revising sentences to make them more precise and clear. In writing, we read nonfiction articles about famous inventors, and practiced making inferences and writing great paragraphs. Ms. Hazen would like to commend Tyler Nieves for being a diligent student!
In 8th grade, the students had a great time during class discussions in our reading class! We continued our novel study of Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. In grammar, we read nonfiction articles, and practiced writing paragraphs that made great inferences. Mrs. Hazen would like to commend Yehuda Mirocznik for writing great paragraphs!
Middle School Math
This week the 6th grade completed their second Unit Test on Multiples and Factors, Least Common Multiples and Greatest Common Factors and did quite well. Now they are working on dividing fractions with models and algebraically. They are all struggling a bit with it but I can see them slowly getting the hang of it.
7th Grade just took their first Unit Test on Numbers and Operations and is currently working on Expressions and Order of Operations. They just had a quiz on the latter two and the majority of them showed their understanding of the work. Additionally, 7th grade honors took their Unit Test 2 on Expressions and Order of Operations successfully. They are now working on Equations and Inequalities.
8th grade just took quizzes on exponents, properties of exponents and the importance the use of scientific notations and scored quite high overall and I’m very pleased with their results. They are now working on how to write large numbers using the scientific notation and seem to be mastering the material quite fast. On the other hand, 8th grade honors just took their Unit Test 1 on expressions and Numbers and operations and, although they struggled quite a bit during their most recent Quiz they soared got higher scores on their Test.
Thank you.
Mr. Martin
Middle School Social Studies
In 6th grade, we discussed the Assyrian Empire in depth and engaged in a state building exercise to put what we learned into practice.
In 7th grade, we learned about the Conquistadores’ exploration and conquest of the Americas and continued our maps from last week.
In 8th grade, we talked about Reconstruction laws, the Southern response, and various important Supreme Court cases of the period.
Jewish History
This week, 7th grade finished their first unit in Jewish History and is getting ready for their first test on Tuesday. We will then move on to learn about the lives of the forefathers.
8th grade finished reviewing last years lessons and will be having a test on Tuesday as well. We will then move on to learn about the Babaloniayn exile. Exciting events like lions dens coming up!
