A Thankful Thanksgiving Feast

Gratitude was the theme for this year’s first, second, and third grade Thanksgiving Feast. As always, the second graders culminated their unit on Native American life by inviting the first and third graders to join them for a celebratory feast on the last day of school before Thanksgiving. Students gathered in the cafeteria, festively decorated by members of the PTA, and enjoyed food and entertainment.

Of course, in keeping with their area of expertise, students in second grade played the roles of Native Americans and were led by Mrs. Kirschenbaum wearing a regal Native headdress. They contributed homemade (classmade?) cranberry sauce to the feast and sang “People of the Drum,” accompanying themselves on that instrument. 

The third graders–along with Rabbi Fogel and Ms. Leeper–came dressed as Pilgrims. Wearing buckled black hats and white bonnets, these students bore a fruit salad that they made with their own hands (and under the supervision of Mrs. Zervoudis). They sang a song called “Thankful,” and explained some of the things for which they were most thankful.

First graders, in the role of turkeys, may have attended the feast with some trepidation. While they clearly enjoyed themselves, they brought (very filling!) sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and sang “Albuquerque Turkey,” which suggests replacing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey with macaroni and cheese.

Of course, everyone was thankful for the lovely table settings and delicious cornbread thoughtfully provided by the PTA. 

Students Welcome Grandparents, "Special Someones" to School for Shabbat Program

Grandparents and “special someones” streamed into Mercaz Academy last Friday for a special Erev Shabbat program, much to the delight of the entire student body. These very special visitors picked up bags of crafting material and met their students in an assigned classroom to work on the craft together, braiding their own havdalah candles and creating besamim balls studded with cloves.

With their projects completed, Mercaz students offered their grandparents and other special people personalized tours of the school, pointing out their classrooms, their displayed artwork and writing, and introducing teachers and other staff as they made their way to the cafeteria for the conclusion of the program. 

After a recital of Tehillim for the safety of Israel led by principal Rabbi Kalman Fogel, these treasured visitors were treated to a moving musical performance by the Mercaz students, led by music teacher Craig Resmovits on keyboards. The children sang the classic Shabbat songs of Sholom Aleichem and Ma’ein Olam Haba, and added Acheinu for our brothers and sisters in Israel, with pure voices, pure hearts, and a sweet solemnity that made their audience very proud.

The program ended with beaming students offering a warm goodbye to their beloved visitors, grateful for this chance to welcome them into their lives at school.

Many thanks to the PTA for their hard work to make this program run smoothly!

The Writing Revolution: First Graders Revolt Against Sentence Fragments!

The Writing Revolution–a new program that has been added to enhance expository writing across all Mercaz curriculums–has fomented revolt against incomplete sentences in the first grade. Students are now determined to discover whether sentences are complete or mere sentence fragments, destined for the trash heap of history. 

To figure this out, students paired up and examined the sentence fragments, which contained no capitals or punctuation so as not to inadvertently reveal the answers. Did they have any questions after reading a sentence fragment? Did they feel that crucial information was missing? Students not only identified the sentence fragments, they added additional information to transform a series of sentence fragments into complete sentences. 

First grade students are eager to use what they’ve learned to write the next in a series of “small moment” essays, in which they write a few sentences about a moment in time that was significant to them. ¡Viva la revolución!

Fifth Grade Experiments With Conservation of Mass

The law of conservation of mass explains that, in a closed system, mass will not change after a chemical reaction has occurred; it may move around, but it will never increase or disappear. Fifth graders decided to test this law by mixing baking soda and water in a graduated cylinder.

First, they weighed all the items in the closed system: the baking soda, the water, and the graduated cylinder. They combined the water and the baking soda in the cylinder, and then weighed the combination again. The law of conservation of mass dictates that the weights will be equal, and most students found it to be so, but a few felt that they had managed to disprove this well-known law.

“In some ways, the most educational part of the experiment is when it fails,” said Mrs. Maliner. “At that point, students must engage in a thought experiment to determine what might have caused them to come up with what we already know is the wrong answer.” 

One student came up with five possible reasons:

1. The scale may not have been set to zero.
2. I may have forgotten to weigh the graduated cylinder.
3. The bag containing the baking soda might not have been completely on the scale.
4. I might have added the wrong amount of baking soda.
5. I might have added the wrong amount of water.

Thus, these fifth grade scientists learned that an experiment can never be a failure. At worst, it is an opportunity to investigate–with humility and a clear-eyed view–to determine what went wrong. The scientific rigor required to do this successfully may be the mark of a truly successful student…and it is a lesson that can be applied far beyond fifth grade science.

Thanksgiving: Hakarat Hatov in the GrowTorah Garden

Mercaz Academy students embraced the spirit of Thanksgiving in the GrowTorah garden by focusing on hakarat hatov—recognizing the good and expressing gratitude for it. After discussing  some of the things for which they are grateful, students explored the garden with the assignment to find something there for which they wanted to thank Hashem. This was an opportunity to appreciate the beauty and abundance that surrounds them, even after the riot of summer and early fall growth has ended.

The season has turned but, despite the chilly weather, there was plenty to keep Mercaz students busy. They worked in the garden, clearing space for fall and winter crops by harvesting radishes and removing old tomato plants. Students also enjoyed an exciting hands-on lesson about sugar cane, learning about its origins, how it grows, and delighting in its sweet taste. Sugar cane is the source of common table sugar, but offers a great deal of fiber along with its sweetness, demonstrating the wisdom of Hashem’s design.

Students ended their time in the garden this fall by planting garlic, which will grow through the winter and be ready to harvest in the late spring and summer.