MIVASERET MERCAZ
מבשרת מרכז
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This week, Mercaz Academy did a lot of reading...but they also calculated, analyzed, compared, planted, searched and researched, and even did a little boating. Scroll down to catch a glimpse of a week in the life of Mercaz Academy... |
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Is Your Child Having Trouble Getting Things Done? |
by Mercaz School Counselor Stephanie Bobroff
Executive functioning skills help all of us plan, organize tasks, manage our time, and remember what we need to do. These skills allow us to pay attention to what is important and ignore what is not, hold information in our working memory, initiate tasks such as homework and big projects, and regulate our emotions.
When a child’s executive functioning skills are weak, he or she may often appear to be lazy, unmotivated, messy, or disorganized. This child may be very reluctant to start a project, unable to focus on a homework assignment, or become easily frustrated when demands are set. These “symptoms” mean a child is struggling and needs support in learning tools and tips to strengthen these important skills...Learn strategies
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March Is National Reading Month... |
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Third Grade Solves a Mystery: The Case of the Missing Markers |
Third graders began a unit on mystery novels with a mystery of their own. Students were shocked to find Mrs. Paul’s desk swathed in crime scene tape. Apparently, someone had stolen her markers! Students were divided into groups of detectives and suspects and everyone hunted for clues, took fingerprints, and pondered alibis. At last, their powers of deduction revealed the “criminal” and the markers were returned. As it turned out, it was an inside job–the whole thing was a fun setup to introduce the third graders to the mystery genre. |
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Library Leads National Reading Month Scavenger Hunt |
March is National Reading Month, and the Mercaz Academy Library is humming with activity. Librarian Francie Goldberg’s March Reading Scavenger Hunt invites students to read a list of 15 books with specific characteristics, like “a book that makes you laugh,” “a book with an animal in it,” and “a book with a bug (insect or computer).”
We were also grateful to receive a donation of Hebrew language books from the Gordon family in honor of alumnus Philip Gordon’s Bar Mitzvah. Mercaz students are excited to read ילד נינג׳ה (Ninja Boy), בתוך הלב שלי (In My Heart), and other Hebrew titles. If you’d like to support our library, it’s not too late to purchase books from the PTA’s Scholastic Book Fair. You can use this link to buy books to benefit Mercaz Academy’s library through March 25, even after the Book Fair has technically ended. Happy National Reading Month!
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Nursery Bet visiting the PTA's Scholastic Book Fair |
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Third graders find a really good book. |
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It's always nice to find someone familiar volunteering at the Book Fair. |
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...March Is Also Women's History Month... |
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Fourth Grade Leaving a Stamp on Women’s History Month |
Fourth grade students began Women’s History Month by designing U.S. postage stamps paying tribute to women whom they felt deserved this recognition. Selecting from a list provided by Mrs. Jenny DeMeo, students were able to choose women from the past or the present. They researched biographical information and learned what each candidate had contributed to the United States and the world at large. Students then designed stamps to celebrate the women they chose and wrote about why they felt that woman deserved to be featured on a U.S. postage stamp.
Among the women featured on these stamps were astronaut Sally Ride (who actually has appeared on a U.S. stamp), British author J.K. Rowling (never on a U.S. stamp, although Harry Potter was), and tennis great Serena Williams. Of course, the entire project bears the Mercaz Academy stamp of approval.
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Fifth Grade Marks Pi Day With Digital Memory Contest |
March 14 is known among mathematics aficionados as Pi Day, because the date mimics the first three digits of that well-known constant (3.14). Mrs. Papaccioli’s fifth and sixth graders learned that pi, represented by the Greek letter π, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Pi has an infinite number of digits and has been calculated up to nearly 63 trillion decimal places, but Mercaz students boldly entered into competition to see who could memorize the most digits of pi. The Mercaz Academy Pi Champion is sixth grader Max Goldberg, who memorized 57 digits of pi. The fifth grade champion, Benjamin Sedighi, was a close second, memorizing 55 digits of pi. Be sure to ask them to share these digits with you, if you have a lot of extra time! |
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Nursery Bet Ulpan Students Building Hebrew Vocabulary by the Letter |
The students in Nursery Bet are building their Hebrew vocabulary through the Aleph-Bet this year via the “Letter of the Week.” Starting with the letter aleph at the beginning of the school year, Ulpan teacher Morah Levana Gil adds several new vocabulary words per week (represented by pictures on her board), beginning with that week’s letter. Last week, Nursery Bet reached the letter mem–a happy intersection, because all four mitzvot (there’s another mem!) of Purim begin with the letter mem.
Nursery Bet uses all their vocabulary words frequently and we were so impressed to learn that they have memorized a whopping 63 new words so far! Will they make it to 100 by the end of the year? It seems possible that despite their tender age–they’re only four–they will have achieved a 100-word foundation on which to build their Hebrew language skills.
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First Grade STEM: Analyzing Rocks and Minerals |
The first grade is completing their research on rocks and minerals, and have been testing rocks for magnetism. They were hoping to discover this indication of a meteorite–a rock from space–but so far, these first grade rocks have been strictly earthbound. Some junior scientists are also hopeful that their rocks may actually be petrified dinosaur eggs! The next step for these first grade rockhounds is to paint rocks to replicate gems. They also plan to design shapes using the softest rock, chalk. |
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Kindergarten Students Use iPads for Letter Recognition, Keyboarding Practice |
Kindergarten students enjoyed using their iPads to work with Pixel Art, a new app they started using last week. Students found lowercase letters on the screen and clicked the matching uppercase letter on the keyboard. Every time the correct matching letter was pressed, scattered pixels in a specific design emerged on the screen, getting clearer with each correct match until the picture was complete. This allowed students to practice letter recognition and keyboarding practice, while exercising their visual image recognition skills as the number of pixels increased. However, students remain unconcerned with the educational benefits and feel that the important part is all the fun they have with the iPads. |
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GrowTorah: Parshiot Vayakhel-Pekudei |
Mercaz Academy students were overjoyed to welcome GrowTorah back for our spring session. As always, Farmer Menuchah connected this week’s Torah portions, Vayakhel and Pekudei, to the school’s gardening activities. Students discovered that the melacha (work) prohibited on Shabbat was defined by our sages as the melacha Bnei Yisrael did in the construction of the Mishkan. Many of these melachot are farming activities!
Due to the cold weather and snow outside, Farmer Menuchah brought the gardening activities indoors. Each class participated in the melachot of choresh (plowing) and zoreah (planting) by filling nursery trays with soil and planting parsley seeds. These parsley plants should be ready to use for karpas at the Pesach seder, when we dip a spring vegetable into salt water. We also tasted the parsley seeds and discovered that they taste like carrots because they're both a part of the Apiaceae plant family.
We are all looking forward to warmer spring weather, when we will plant our garden.
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Students in Kitot Aleph and Bet Practice Searching for Chametz |
Kitot Aleph and Bet have been learning about bedikat chametz, the search for chametz conducted on the night before Pesach. After learning about the traditional tools used for the hunt–a wooden spoon, a feather, and a candle–students in both grades hunted for the ten pieces of “chametz” in their respective classrooms. (The role of the chametz was played by pompons in Kitah Aleph’s room and by pieces of paper that said “chametz” in Kitah Bet’s room.) Using their spoons, candles, and feathers, student teams collected all ten pieces and are now well prepared for bedikat chametz in their own homes in just a few weeks.
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Second Grade Lego Challenge: Boats That Float |
Second grade students enjoyed a “just-for-fun” project when Mrs. Kirschenbaum challenged them to build a Lego boat that really floats, using (almost) all the pieces she distributed. The class had a wonderful time designing, building, and testing their crafts, and no two were alike. The second grade fleet is now prepared to move on from floating in shallow basins to real deep-water sailing…perhaps in a bathtub. |
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Monday, March 20
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Second Grade Only In-person Parent Teacher Conferences
Wednesday, March 22
- Author visit, grades ECC-3, Meish Goldish
Thursday, March 23
- Girls basketball scrimmage, 6:30 pm
Tuesday, March 28
Wednesday, March 29
- Model Seder, grades ECC-3
Saturday night, April 1
- Last chance to register for busing for the next school year
Monday, April 3 through Sunday, April 16
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