This morning at Morning Assembly, the division introduced the fourth in the Middah review series - "What’s the Question?" focusing on asking polite questions instead of making demands or statements. Each month, students will focus on a new Middah, introduced by a funny video. Students are currently reviewing a new middah each week that was introduced last year. Each time a new middah is introduced, students can earn a new bracelet. We've enjoyed watching students' arms fill up with their bracelets! Watch the video that was shown to introduce the new middah here.  

EC and Lower School are ready for sukkot! They've been busy learning all about the chag, its customs, halachot, and have gone in depth about the sukkah, arbah minim, and ushpizin. Students can't wait to decorate their sukkot with the crafts they made and show off all their knowledge over yom tov!

Lower School guidance counselors meet with Early Childhood and Lower School to focus on social emotional learning. This week guidance counselor Esther Klahr met with EC3, EC4 and Gan Gimmel, and last week met with first grade, 2A and 3A. With EC3 they read "The Emotions Book" and started a conversation about feelings. With the other classes, Ms Klahr introduced what a guidance counselor does utilizing Mr. Potato Head, explaining her role with each piece of the Mr. Potato Head body to illustrate what aspects she focuses on and how she can be helpful to them. 

Second graders embarked on an engineering design lesson. They first learned about how birds use their beaks for different actions, and the variety of beaks they have. They learned about beak structure and how it can help birds get food based on how the beak is formed. They designed their own engineering design to get a bead out of a bottle using chopsticks, popsicle sticks, tape, and rubber bands.  

Fifth grade kicked off their Advisory sessions. Advisory meets every two weeks and provides a non-academic, valuable opportunity for our teachers to engage with our students about the social and emotional dynamics and issues that impact our fifth graders. In their inaugural advisory, they took a deep dive into what KushnerCARES (Community, Accountability, Respect, Empathy, and Self-Awareness) means and how they can champion these values in their behaviors every day. Through an activity and a video, they discussed the words’ meanings and talked about the significance of these values and how their adherence to them enhances every community.

Thank you to Rabbi James Proops of Suburban Torah in Livingston for sharing an inspirational Shabbat Shuvah drasha with our 7th and 8th graders. His words helped students get into the mindset of setting goals and what they want to work on and how to achieve those goals as they headed into Yom Kippur and the new year.  

Morah Nechama's 7th grade chumash classes enjoyed a Chumash Domino Game. There was a picture of each phrase from the pesukim they were learning on each side of the domino. Students had to read and understand the phrase and match to its correct picture...which had another phrase to match to, which continued the chain they were building. Students did a great job matching the common phrases from the Pesukim and understanding the Chumash Text.

We are so proud of our students who completed the Middle School Aseret Yemei Teshuva challenge.   Each day from Rosh Hashana to Yom Kippur students were tasked to put their best foot forward to start this new year, completing specific mitzvah-related challenges, which motivated and enhanced the time before Yom Kippur.  Sixth, seventh and eighth graders who completed the challenge received certificates. We look forward to handing out certificates to 5th graders next week and celebrating with everyone who participated with an ice pop party!

This week in Kushner's GrowTorah program, in advance of Sukkot the Middle School students learned all about the science and history of the Arba Minim. Farmer Shimon of GrowTorah and the students first learned about the Etrog, or Citrus medica, also known as Citron in English. We learned about how the Etrog is one of the three original species of citrus from which most of the oranges, lemons, limes, and grapefruits were developed by breeding, and showed a graph to display the relationships. We learned about how most citrus and stone fruits are not grown on their own roots and why, and we learned that this grafting is not permitted for etrogim to be used for the mitzvah. Farmer Shimon showed some seeds of a new citrus called US-852, and the teachers conferred with him about how it could be grown at Kushner. The students also learned about the date palm, the source of the Lulav, which is called Phoenix dactylifera ("date-bearing Phoenecian palm" for the Greeks). The students learned that 2,000 year old date palm seeds from Masada were successfully sprouted, and now there are male and female plants of this ancient variety, and even dates! The students asked questions about how such tall trees could be pollinated (fans) and harvested (cherry pickers). Next they learned about Hadasim, known as Myrtus communis or myrtle, and about this beautiful plant's edible berries, which were a surprise to the students. This plant's leaves, berries and oils were used by our ancestors in Israel long ago. Last, they discussed the Aravot/Arvei Nahal, or Willow. Specifically Salix alba, the common Willow of Israel, as opposed to the 350 other Willow species around the world. We learned about why it is called alba, or white, and how it is also male or female, like the date palm. They learned that its bark was traditionally used for pain relief, and that is how aspirin was developed! An information-packed pre-Sukkot session to be sure. Looking forward to next time, and Chag Sameach from GrowTorah!