October 17, 2008 Tishrei 18, 5768 Dear MJCDS Parents, May the holiday season of abundance continue for you and yours with abundance of fruit, fun, and family joy! Sukkot for us has been wonderful and we extend a hearty ìtodah rabbahî to the Milun Family for having us over to their sukkah for an ice cream party. We ate, played and even learned while we were on this wonderful field trip. Our joy in partaking in Sukkot continues on 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 camaraderie as we celebrate our Holiday of Huts! These past two days flew by as we celebrate the days of chol hamoed. As noted above we celebrated at the Milunís home on Thursday and on Friday we made edible sukkot. During these days we too found time to continue with our general studies learning. We did a lot of counting. We counted our tzeddekah change both in English and Hebrew in ones, fives, tens and twenty five cent increments. We also practiced counting in even numbers. We made equivalent or ìfairî trades and did some basic addition. We likewise did comparable counting early in the mornings when we did our morning exercise. We also made a fruit graph and found out which are our most favorite pieces of fruit. Students continue to read poems daily. This week they returned to writing poems as they learned about haiku poetry. The topic was Sukkot and the childrenís imaginations took off. When some of them finished early with writing haiku poetry they had the opportunity to do a shape poem. They tied this all in with current events as they read their Scholastic News articles. There some students encountered new words while others recognized basic words that became part of their own ìword walls.î Individual ìword wallsî are words that offer proper spelling that can be used in the studentís own personal writing. The past few Kabbalat Shabbat sessions students have used a special Shabbat pamphlet. While the reading level is above a second grade level in some areas, all students are reading it at their own appropriate level. All are joining in for the prayers and singing. Please if you can come join us on Fridays from 1:15 pm ‚ 2:00 pm, we would be honored to have you. It is a very special and meaningful time. One request is necessary; however, please help your child remember to bring in some loose change for Fridays as tzeddekah. It helps us elevate our Shabbat good cheer as well as fulfill an important mitzvah. We continue to send ìrefuah shlamaî blessings to Jonathan Greenspan who broke his leg. We wish him a complete healing so that he can be up and around climbing around. Until next timeÖ have a sweet Shabbat. Kol tuv, Meisha and Jodi Meisha and Jodi