This Week at Yavneh Academy!

This Week at Yavneh Academy - September 28, 2017/8 Tishrei 5778

גמר חתימה טובה

Early Childhood Department

Learning about Bees!
How do bees make honey? What are the different parts of a bee? Where do bees live? How many sides does a hexagon have? These are some of the questions we have been exploring as Gan Aleph was buzzing through the halls of Yavneh learning all about bees! The children have become experts on the bee's process of honey making. They used pattern blocks to see how many different ways they can make a hexagon. After learning about the letter Bb and the sound that it makes, the children made their own bee puppets and used the puppet to "feed" it items that begin with the letter B! We even spent some time observing an actual piece from a bee hive! Using an interactive bee, we learned about the head, thorax, abdomen, pollen basket and of course the stinger of a bee. We played movement games highlighting and reviewing the bee's anatomy. It has been a fun filled week of exploration and discovery and we have truly been busy as bees in Yavneh Academy!

What Makes a Good Friend?

Because friendship is such an important theme of the Yamim Noraim, we have been focusing a lot on what makes a good friend, from sharing and taking turns to including others in our play and offering help to one another. Socializing is a very important part of our development. To help the yeladim continue to build their friendships with their classmates outside of school, we created a "Friend Phone Book" containing a directory of all our classmates in Ganon Bet with original illustrations from the children. We also thought about the importance of being good friends to those in need and how we do that every day when we give tzedakah during davening. We decorated beautiful personalized tzedakah pouches to encourage the children to participate in this special mitzvah.

Lower School

Yavneh's Young Artists

In art class, the students in first grade through fifth grade have started off the year with a mini 3" monochromatic self-portrait. After drawing their portraits, they were assigned one color and asked to use only shades of that color throughout the whole portrait. Once completed, they will be displayed together as a mural. Stay tuned for the fabulous reveal in Yavneh's hallways very soon!

Third Grade Writers!

Class 3B is crazy! About writing, that is! Our first writing piece of the year is to write about things that we are crazy about. We use our graphic organizers to write down all of our ideas. Then we take our ideas and write fully formed paragraphs including a topic sentence, details, and a concluding sentence. Some of the things that students are crazy about in 3B are gymnastics, baking, LEGO and Broadway. We can't wait to read each other's paragraphs!

First Through Eighth Graders Learn Together During Aseret Yimei Teshuva

Inter-grade learning is one of the most inspirational programs that we do at Yavneh Academy. This week grades 5-8 prepared a lesson to teach to grades 1-4 on Wednesday afternoon. They learned all about our two themes of the year, Kavod (respect) and Community and how the two connect very well. It is always an amazing sight to watch the upper grades become real leaders and teachers to the lower grades! The classrooms and the hallways are full of students engaged in learning activities and conversations. What an amazing way to prepare for Yom Kippur during Aseret Yimei Teshuva! Click here for photos!

Middle School

Rabbi Yaakov Glasser Addresses

Middle School Students

In preparation for Yom Kippur, and to kickstart our Middah-of-the-Year program, Rabbi Yaakov Glasser spoke to the entire middle school on Wednesday

morning. Rabbi Glasser, Rav of Young Israel Passaic-Clifton, shared his message with the students in both a humorous and inspiring way. Through stories, both from medrashim and his life, he demonstrated for the students that each individual student has the ability to be a leader. Just like Bnei Yisrael are referred to as "Momlechet Kohanim"- a nation of kohanim, each person has the ability to lead and inspire others. Through respecting and believing in themselves, our Middle School students will be focusing on being respectful to peers, faculty, the building, and themselves. We look forward to recognizing these efforts both in school and at home.

Seventh Graders Study Unetaneh Tokef

In preparation for Yom Kippur, Rabbi Menchel's 7A and 7C Gemara class have been working through a PBL (Project Based Learning) unit to gain a deeper appreciation for one of the most meaningful tefillot of the day, Unetaneh Tokef. Each student was assigned one of the phrases from the Unetaneh Tokef, and were responsible to research their phrase and find relevant examples of recent world events, and make a slide presentation about their phrase. The project culminated with several students making a video of everyone's slides, to give each of the phrases of this powerful tefillah greater meaning and context.

Students Share Summer Reading Presentations

Mrs. Udashkin's 6B, 6D and 8B, 8D classes were very busy building representations of the summer novels they read. Grade 8 read "Touching Spirit Bear" and grade 6 read either "Wonderstruck " or " The Invention of Hugo Cabret." The students also presented slide shows depicting their interpretations of their novels.

Middle School Elective Program off to a Great Start

Yavneh Academy is proud to announce our Middle School 6th grade elective program. Children are attending electives of their choice once a week. Our courses include:

· The Nutritious Chef in You with Coach Gila

· Checkmate with Vladimir

· Let's Get Into the Picture with Ms. Rudin

· Art:Still-life Drawing and Acrylic Painting with Mrs. Kazam

· STEM Leadership Club with Mrs. Hirschhorn.

Be on the lookout for our healthy snacks, budding chess stars, photography taken to a whole new level, artistic renderings and our STEM Day/Night led by our leadership club students.