Phoenix Hebrew Academy

Dear Parents,

As I continue to introduce the many upgrades and enhance-ments which our school has made to its academic program and educational infrastructure for the new school year to you, I would like to focus on two additional ones this week. The first is the expansion of our already successful STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) program to include Robotics. For those unfamiliar with the program in general, our STEAM program is a fully integrated hands on experience. Our students discover many scientific con-cepts through design and experimentation. Aside from our two annual major STEAM expos, our Science Fair and In-vention Convention, our students also engage in many labora-tory experiments. From testing their bodies to see if they can achieve homeostasis to observing living things produce energy through cellular respiration; from discovering the micro world of atoms and their structures and behaviors to the macro universe by observing Einstein's theory of rela-tivity through demonstrating the concept of gravitational waves, each module reinforces our students' understanding of a plethora of scientific concepts. As previously men-tioned, this year we are happy to announce that PHA will join the CIJE (Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education) Robotics tournament, with more information to come in fu-ture weeks! We are also very excited about a new STEAM expo which we will debut this January, our Torah Science Fair, integrating science with Torah in a way which brings the beauty of Hashem’s grand master plan to the fore! In so doing, we actually are moving beyond merely a STEAM pro-gram, and into a STREAM one, which includes Religion as well! The second enhancement on which I would like to focus is our Judaic studies resource program. Using the time-tested and highly effective Kriah Scan, produced by Aish Dos in Monsey, NY, and approved by Torah Umesorah, as a benchmark assessment tool, we have almost completed as-

sessing every student’s Hebrew read-ing level for both accuracy and fluency in grades 2-8. Once we have complied this data, we will use it to determine eligibility for entrance into the re-source program, so that every student can receive the individualized program they deserve in every area of our school’s curriculum.

Shabbat Shalom,

Yisroel Weiner

Parshat Shoftim 7 Elu l , 5779 Sep . 7 , 2019

F r om t h e d e s k o f t h e P r i n c i p a l

Shabbat t imes C.L . : 6 :29 in : 6 :47 out: 7 :24

Week l y W i nd ow

Upcoming Birthdays

9/8– Dena Weiner

9/8– Ezra Hirsch

9/9– Moshe Baer

Happy Birthday!

Classroom News

2s painted toilet paper rolls that will be used to decorate the classroom!

3s had fun mixing water with soap and using a straw to blow bubbles!

Pre-K introduced the letter A!

Kindergarten is on their way to becoming Kriya Champs! We learned Alef through Vet and even added a komatz!

1st Grade learned all about the shofar and its sounds. We enjoyed holding different types of actual Shofrot!

2nd Grade is excited to learn Chumash!

3rd Grade is working on classifying animals into groups based on their physical features!

4th Grade just finished Chapter 1 in Math!

5th Grade is working on their landform projects, designing 3D versions of their favorite natural landmarks!

6th Grade learned why making good hypotheses are important to the scientific method!

7th Grade Boys & 8th Grade Boys are each learning how to decipher the steps of the Gemo-rah. In Halacha they learned what to do if someone said the wrong bracha!

7th Grade Girls researched the ancient land-scape of Mesopotamia and compared it to our modern day landmarks of the area!

8th Grade Girls practiced how to measure the volume of irregular shaped objects via the water displacement method!

Dates to Remember

9/9– Middot assembly- Zerizut– 8:45 AM

9/11– 9/11 memorial as-

sembly– 9:00 AM

9/30-10/1– Rosh Hasha-na– no school

10/2– Midterm of First

Trimester

10/8– Erev Yom Kippur– 11:00 AM dismissal

The P r e -s ch o o l P r e s s : It is hard to be-

lieve that it is already the Hebrew month of Elul! Ex-citement is already stirring and there is already a buzz in the preschool about the upcoming set of Yomim To-vim! This week the 2s were introduced to some of the main concepts surrounding Rosh Hashana. They learned about apples and sweet honey as well as the shofar! The preschool gets to hear the shofar being blown each day of this month! Our 3s and Pre-K started learning some of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This week the 3s used their bodies to make a human “aleph” and the Pre-K students learned the letter “bet”. They are also enjoying getting into the spirit of Shabbat every week with Shabbat sing-along, some fun coloring pages, and learning about the special mitzvah of lighting Shabbat can-dles. We had a wonderful week of learning and we can’t wait to share all of the exciting projects and activities that are in store over the next month! Shabbat shalom and have a wonderful weekend!

Picture Page

Mrs. Shaffer’s Message: I recently walked past a playground and heard all the little kids ex-

claiming almost the same thing to the adults nearby, “Look at me!

Watch me!” Do human beings have a need to feel noticed, significant,

and validated? Do we often work hard to gain these feelings? If this

were not true, do you suppose people would be willing to compromise so

much dignity just to get on camera for a moment, or to “star” in a reality show? If

only there were a way to meet this powerful human need without making our kids feel

embarrassed or patronized. This is where the One-Sentence Intervention comes in.

This powerful Love and Logic skill is all about meeting the need to feel noticed or

significant. We can simply walk up and notice something true about the young person

and then move on like it’s no big deal. Interests are great things to notice — for ex-

ample, “I noticed that you play soccer a lot.” As you might guess, we must take care

to balance the meeting of that need with another powerful driver of human behavior

— the fear of feeling embarrassed. We all know kids who don’t want to be called

on, shown off to friends or given praise publicly. For that reason, we often whisper

things we notice to kids or catch them as they are walking by so there is less chance

the encounter will make them feel uncomfortable. The more subtle and less like a

technique it feels to the young person, the better. Don’t wait for or expect a re-

sponse from the child. That’s not the point. We want to come across as caring adults

who take a sincere interest in our kids. Have fun experimenting with this skill!