October 10, 2008 Tishrei 11, 5768 Dear Parents, May you and yours be finding continued joy ‚ simcha rabbah- with the continuation of our fall holidays. Speaking of which, please save the date and time: Sunday, October 19th from 12:00-1:30 pm. We will be having lunch in the Beth Israel Center sukkah ‚ weather providing! Bring some kosher dairy goodies and join us for some friendship, good cheer, and joy as we celebrate our Holiday of Huts! This week was, like last week, a short school week. During our time together we did a lot of writing! From writing a get well letter, refuah shlama, to Jonathan Greenspan, to sending greetings to HaMorah Tina and the Gan/K at Temple Beth El, to the Goodman Brothers, and to Dr. Donna Shalala our students thought about creating messages that included sentences with periods, exclamatory statements with exclamation marks and questions with question marks. They focused on writing pieces that piqued the readerís interest and let them know what was on their minds. During math time they focused on time. They constructed paper clocks and learned to read time. K students learned to read the ìoíclockî and the 30 minutes after the hour designations. Our first graders worked on that as well as on reading various increments after the hour. They discovered that reading time is not all that challenging, especially when you are able to move the time around on your own homemade clock. Students also realized that time was running away as they learned about Yom Kippur. They read a childís mahzor, sang appropriate choral refrains, heard the story of Yonah, and learned their own phone numbers in Hebrew. This later activity tied in because during yontiff time we want to be able to call each other and share good greetings. Our students also had a discussion about Columbus Day. They heard the story Columbus Day by Vicki Liestman. After tracing Columbusís voyage on a world map students wrote stories about the journey. Students also read with partners their first copy of Scholastic News which too taught about Columbus. These past Kabbalat Shabbats we enjoyed having our first guests. While they are of our extended MJCDS Family we are most proud to be able to share with our family members this meaningful and special time of coming together, learning, and reflecting on the week that has come before. We are grateful for many blessings and especially for the blessing of some of our students remembering to bring tzeddekah. While we do collect lose change for the poor during the week, we request that the children bring in some change specifically on Shabbat to help us perform the mitzvah of taking care of others. We applaud those who are remembering to do so. Last week we went to the library on Monday, October 6. Thank you for helping us by having their permission slips in and by supplying your childís car seat. Children selected books to take out and read. These will be due back at the library the first Monday in November. Presently we still need your help with ìfreeî items. If you can donate any toilet tissue rolls, paper toweling rolls, old magazines, shoe boxes, and baby wipes containers we would be most appreciative. We use these items for various art projects. At this time we send ìrefuah shlamaî blessings to Jonathan Greenspan who recently broke his leg. We wish him a complete healing so that he can be up and around climbing around. Remember, do feel free to contact us if you need to and until next timeÖ have a sweet Shabbat. Kol tuv, Meisha and Jodi