The Upstairs Preschool children have been exploring the land of Egypt. Using sandpaper and oil pastels, they created pictures of Egypt. This one is by Avital.

It’s been a full year since the plague of COVID arrived in our midst.

We have acquired a new vocabulary: asymptomatic, quarantine, social distancing, essential workers, antibodies, bubble (or pod), PPE, Zoom, variants, mascne (mask-acne).

We have suffered from heightened anxiety, loss of control, mental and physical illness, loss of neighbors and loved ones, financial hardship, and widespread atrophy of social skills.

We have discovered a deeper and more powerful sense of gratitude for all of life’s gifts, large and small.

We have learned that while we navigate our own personal struggles, we gain strength and fulfillment from our commitment to one another. Our Social Covenant has lifted us up and allowed our students to learn and laugh in a vibrant environment for this entire school year.

Though we are exhausted and not yet freed from this plague, our liberation is beginning to come into focus. Every day we hear from more people who, thanks to vaccinations, have experienced the unprecedented joy of hugging a grandparent or a parent for the first time in a year. Our households are starting to expand as we thoughtfully include more family and friends for Shabbat, Seder, or visits.

While we soon tell the story of our exodus from Egypt around our Seder tables, we do so with new appreciation for every part of the journey. Thank you for your patience, understanding, appreciation, and trust during this long year. We look forward to dancing with you on the other side.

Shabbat Shalom!

Health Update 14 (March 1, 2021)

All week, the Kindergarteners have been working hard on their Haggadot.

The festival of Passover, particularly Seder night, is often geared towards teaching our children. Leading up to Passover, our students are deeply engaged in preparation for the festival. Grades 1-4 made their own Seder plates and will conduct a model Seder in their classrooms.

5th/6th graders will be examining the Haggadah through the lens of Tanakh (the Bible), looking at how the authors of the Haggadah took biblical verses and homiletically used them to derive different lessons. For example, when looking at the four children, the wicked child asks a question that, on the surface, seems to be rude, if not mean. Yet, when one goes back to look at the verse from Exodus, chapter 12, the verse is simply an innocent question from a child to his parents. Students will grapple with the essential question, "Why the change in emphasis by the Haggadah's author?" 5th/6th graders will also study the 10th chapter of tractate Pesachim in Mishnah, which outlines the Haggadah and the Seder meal. They will then compare and contrast the Mishnah's outline with the Haggadah that we use today.

7th/8th graders will focus on learning different commentaries on the Haggadah. These commentaries will focus on both Rabbinic sources, such as the Talmud and Midrashim, as well as commentaries from the Middle Ages such as Rabbi Don Isaac Abarbenel, who famously teaches three lessons on why the opening passage of the Magid section is written in Aramaic while the remaining sections of the Haggadah are written in Hebrew. Please ask you student for the answer on Seder night!

Our goal this year is to enhance our students' Seder experience with grade level appropriate lessons.

On behalf of the Akiba-Schechter faculty and staff, I wish you a Chag Kasher V'Semach!

Our Teva class likes to use the materials they find around them to make art. On a wet and cold day they found lots of mud to use in their paintings. They also found some patches of snow. They collected the snow in cups, mashed it into their water colors and thus widened their mud palette. Using the park building as an easel, the children worked together to create masterpieces.

Frog poses and jumps in the Downstairs Blue Room... the children are getting ready for Passover!

The Purple Room children have been learning the story of Passover. Here Claire is posing as Pharaoh to be traced, Joelle is painting a robe for Moses, and Trystan is painting a locust.

The 3rd/4th graders in Mrs. Brackman's class put together a beautiful cookbook of Passover recipes. We'll be featuring some of these recipes on our blog in this coming week leading up to Passover (look for new links on our Facebook page). First up: the Allender Family's recipe for Charoset.

The 3/4th grade class presented Ms. Kass with a signed thank you card and their Passover cookbook in gratitude for all her hard work.

Mr. Esse’s 3rd/4th grade classes have been focusing on mastering their times tables. Using a variety of activities, students are steadily working their way through all their multiplication facts. One of the more fun ways is by playing The Product Game, which is similar to Connect Four but involves working knowledge of products and factors. In honor of March Madness, both classes had a randomly assigned bracket in which they faced off with a classmate. The winner of a best-of-three moved onto the next round until each class had a champion. All the students had a fun time competing and showed great sportsmanship and support for each other.

Rabbi Bauman's 3rd/4th grade Chumash class played games they invented to learn vocabulary.

In Science, 5th graders were particularly happy about this Rube Goldberg machine trial.

The 5th/6th graders in Ms. Friesen and Polly's Math class sorted collections of things they had at home (stuffed animals, books, games) and counted items in categories. Then they created spreadsheets, bar and circle graphs, as well as pie charts for Pi Day. Students learned to look at the graphs and ask proportional questions. The class hung the graphs up around the room and had a scavenger hunt. In whose collection are dogs and cats about a fourth of the whole? How many in the fish category would fit into the feline category? What is the difference between one graph's percent of fiction books and another's? Which actually had the most books? What is the ratio of card games to board games in someone's collection?

Students looked for fractions they were familiar with visually and realized they had a good sense for what portion of a pie would take up three fourths and to verify that by adding the actual percentages. They had to decide how to approximate and learned to ask mathematical questions in many different ways. Now students are editing their questions and hanging those up on the board for other classes to answer.

Moreh Maor with Morah Dorit’s 3rd/4th grade class playing a color Hebrew quiz using the big screen and the computer. 

In each issue of the Kibitzer, we feature one of our 8th graders. In this edition, it is Ronit Radutny:

A big thank you to Eric Stein for sharing and demonstrating "The Mandolin in Jewish Life" on Sunday, March 7, and to our PTO for organizing this fun Zoom event!

Our Friday, March 5 Day of Learning was dedicated in loving memory of Paul Basa z"l, by the Akiba-Schechter Community.

Our Tuesday, March 16 Day of Learning was dedicated to the Faculty and Staff of Akiba-Schechter in memory of Paul Basa z"l. Thank you for all your hard work and commitment! The Basa Family

Our Thursday, March 18 Day of Learning was in honor of Julia Friedman-Parks on the occasion of her Bat Mitzvah. Mazel Tov! With love from her extended family

Our Friday, March 19 Day of Learning was dedicated in loving memory of

Maurice Elkabetz Ben Mazal z"l by his daughter, Iris.