MIVASERET MERCAZ
מבשרת מרכז
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Mercaz Academy did an Hour of Code, created menorahs, studied states of matter, bagged their books and analyzed data of all types...and took time to write thank you notes! |
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Mercaz Academy Hour of Code Project |
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Mercaz Academy celebrated Computer Science Education Week by participating in the Hour of Code event, joining millions of other Hour of Coders who got busy programming various projects all over the world. After signing Mercaz up as an official Hour of Code event site back in October, Mrs. Lynda Last, our Director of Technology, designed several projects to engage our elementary school students for an hour devoted to programming. In a special Mercaz Academy touch, Mrs. Last added a social/emotional component to the activities by stressing collaboration and mentoring, with students from the older grades paired with students from the younger grades...Read more
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Kindergarteners Create Menorot, Write Letters, and Practice Gratitude |
Kindergarten students at Mercaz were delighted to receive a special donation from Old Country Ceramic Tile to help with their Chanukah project. Morah Batsheva’s students used the beautiful tiles to fashion charming, fire-safe menorahs by gluing nuts (the hardware kind, not the edible kind) on large tiles, then decorated them by gluing smaller tiles on as well. And, because Mercaz Academy students practice hakarat hatov (recognition of good, or gratitude) always, they wrote lovely thank you notes to the store owners, complete with drawings of their menorot. Thank you, Old Country Ceramic Tile–and thank you, kindergarten students.
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Fourth Grade Bags Book Reports |
Mercaz Academy fourth graders presented their book reports this week, but their presentations were certainly not the same old essays you remember from elementary school. These students chose books that interested them and summarized the plot, described the setting and main characters, and reported on the theme. But there was no old-school report cover involved; instead, they decorated a bag with their writing, adding their unique artistic detailing. Finally, they placed five objects in the bag that related to the book, making their presentations a beautiful, multi-sensory experience for their classmates. |
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Mercaz Academy Gets Insider's Look at Torah Reading |
A primary goal of education is to prepare for anticipated challenges. So even though all Mercaz Academy students are under bar mitzvah age and there is no obligation for them to read from the Torah, they were excited to get an inside view of the joys of kriyat haTorah. On Tuesday, the students celebrated the achievement of a member of our Mercaz family, Chairman of the Board Gary Katz, who accomplished his goal to layn the entire Torah. In recognition of this occasion, Mercaz Academy principal Rabbi Kalman Fogel invited Mr. Katz to visit the school and speak to the older grades about setting goals and tenacity…and could he please bring his sefer Torah with him? Read more
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Multiplication Monsters On The Loose in Math Lab! |
Learning multiplication facts is an important facet of third grade math, but that’s certainly no reason to make it boring. Third grade teacher Mrs. Laura Paul’s students used their multiplication facts to create monsters in their math lab. For every monster body part, they rolled a die twice, then multiplied those numbers to determine how many of that body part to draw. They rolled and multiplied to calculate the number of arms, legs, eyes, and fangs for their monsters, and brought them to life by drawing their monster portraits. |
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Kitah Aleph Practices Candle Lighting in Hebrew |
Morah Shani’s Kitah Aleph students used their newly acquired knowledge of Hebrew cardinal and ordinal numbers for a fun practice exercise on the laws of Chanukah. Kitah Aleph students were divided into teams, and instructed b’Ivrit (in Hebrew) on how many candles to “light.” Then the teams set up the corresponding number of candles and proceeded to “light” them correctly, remembering that candles are set up from the right but lit from the left. Finally, the teams reported on which night of Chanukah the menorahs would be lit with the same number of candles. Teams continued returning to Morah Shani for more assignments until all the nights of Chanukah had been covered, with Kitah Aleph performing flawlessly throughout the exercise.
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Second Grade Creates Model Native American Villages |
Mrs. Kirschenbaum’s second grade students culminated their Native American studies by using their research to create models of Inuit, Eastern Woodlands, Plains, and Southwest Native American villages. Second graders know that Native Americans in different parts of the country built very different houses, adapted to the weather conditions of that particular region. Many cultural differences also played a role in designing the villages. These fascinating model villages, created with recycled materials, impressively reflect the thought and attention to detail of our second graders in their portrayal of these ways of life. |
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Nursery Bet Discovers What's In a Name |
Nursery Bet enjoyed comparing the names of each student with Morah Jo’s. Nursery Bet students added each of their names, letter by letter, to a whiteboard. Then they counted the number of letters in each name and determined whose names had the most and who had the least number of letters. They also enjoyed figuring out which students had the same number of letters in their names. This lesson brought together letter and number recognition, data analysis, mathematical comparison, and a great time, too. |
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Second Grade STEM Class Explores the States of Matter |
The second grade is researching the four states of matter and its properties with Mrs. Gonzalez-Spagnuolo in STEM. They know that matter exists as either a solid, liquid, gas, or plasma, and have studied the properties of each state of matter. Ask a second grader and you will learn that solids hold their shapes and feel hard, while liquids keep the same volume but not the same shape and feel wet. Our second graders will also tell you that gas can change both its shape and its volume and plasma is like gas, but it can also change its electrical charge. In this photo, students are examining capillary action while learning about absorbency as a property of matter. Can something change its state of matter? Tune in next week to learn the results of second grade experiments to determine the answer to that question. |
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Sunday, December 11
- Basketball game at Mercaz Academy, 1:15 pm
Monday, December 12
Tuesday, December 13
- Anti-Bullying Program
- Chanukah Boutique
Sunday, December 18
Monday, December 26
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No school: Last day of Chanukah
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