MIVASERET MERCAZ
מבשרת מרכז
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Mercaz students are entering Chanukah ready to celebrate! In the last two weeks, we've hosted grandparents and welcomed new friends, we've relived the Chanukah story and met a time-traveling Hebrew letter, coded robots and trains and automobiles. We've danced, we've created, and we may have had a lightsaber duel. Scroll down for a glimpse of the last two weeks at Mercaz Academy...
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Happy Chanukah from Mercaz Academy! |
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Kitah Aleph Reenacts Chanukah Story |
Students in Kitah Aleph had a wonderful time reenacting the story of Chanukah in Ivrit with Morah Shani. Students divided themselves into Yivanim (Greeks) and Yehudim (Jews), complete with draped costumes. The Yivanim, clutching small pigs and with fists raised, decreed that Jews would not be allowed to keep Shabbat, mark the new month, or eat kosher food. In fact, the Yivanim forbade the Yehudim to be Jews.
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The Jews were led in rebellion by Matityahu, played by a visiting Rabbi Fogel. After defeating the Greeks and reconquering the Beit Hamikdash, they cleaned it up very efficiently, removing all pigs and idols. (Several students playing Greeks switched sides at this point.) The Jews could find only one jar of pure oil, rather than the eight they needed. Fortunately, Hashem performed a miracle and made the one jar last for all eight days until they could get new pure oil, and the reenactment ended much as the Chanukah story did–happily, and with snacks afterwards.
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Mercaz Students Are Ready for Chanukah |
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Nursery Bet students made mesmerizing Chanukah-themed snowglobes. |
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Kitah Daled practicing the halachot of lighting the chanukiah. |
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Just for fun, Kindergarten students practiced fine-motor skills with their decorative dreidel lacing cards. |
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Nursery Aleph created tile chanukiot that they can really use for lighting! |
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Toddlers used foam and stickers to make toddler-safe chanukiot with Velcro flames. |
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Toddlers love Chanukah parties! |
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First graders wrote short essays on Chanukah and made adorable dreidel people. |
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Kitah Hay used a different technique to practice the halachot of Chanukah candle lighting. |
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Fourth graders shopping for presents for their families at the PTA Chanukah Boutique. |
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Mercaz Academy Joins Hour of Code |
Mercaz Academy joined millions of people all over the world in Hour of Code, an event that introduces students (and others) to programming by challenging them to devote one hour to coding. The program, designed and implemented by Director of Educational Technology Mrs. Lynda Last, paired students from older grades with students from younger grades to encourage collaboration and mentoring.
Fourth grade students served as “navigators” for their first grade teammates as they rotated through three different tasks. These groups worked to program Dash robots using Blockly, a programming app. Students drove the robot in different directions and patterns, spun it around, moved its “head,” and caused it to blink and change eye color. They also programmed Intelino “smart trains” by inserting small colored blocks into the track, as well as Indi cars, which are programmed by laying out colored mats that direct the car as it travels over them.
Fifth and sixth graders “navigated” for second and third grade students as each team chose one of four activities that interested them: sports, construction, animation, or augmented reality. Teams that chose sports programmed their own games, instructing the virtual foot or hockey stick towards the virtual flag or puck. The more art-inclined used Scratch to animate their own cartoons. Students interested in augmented reality coded a model of the solar system, while the rest embarked on a Minecraft Adventure.
The Hour of Code program was a great success at Mercaz, and will no doubt lead our students to many more hours of coding in the future.
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The result of coding an Intelino train. |
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ECC Hosts Guests In Wide Range of Ages |
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ECC Grandparent and Special Person Chanukah Event |
Students in the Mercaz Academy Early Childhood Center and Kindergarten were delighted to welcome their grandparents (and some other special people) to a Chanukah program on the last Friday morning before the holiday. As these beloved guests entered the school, they greeted their grandchildren and posed for a photo together, and were then formally seated at round tables.
Kindergarten students opened the event by demonstrating their knowledge of the brachot for Chanukah, and followed this with a rousing performance of “Maoz Tzur.” Morah Joanne Mlotok hosted a Chanukah trivia game, with several questions–such as, “how big is the world’s biggest menorah?”--eliciting some adorable guesses from the younger participants.
After these activities, each table received copies of the photos that had been taken on arrival, as well as a stack of wooden picture frames, markers, and Chanukah-themed stickers. The young Mercaz students got to work designing and coloring frames (with some help and advice from their grandparents). After a delightful snack of Chanukah-themed cookies and fruit, the children presented their grandparents with the finished product–a beautifully decorated, framed photo–to take home as a souvenir of the event.
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ECC Pajama Night: Mercaz Academy After Dark |
The Early Childhood Center Pajama Night was an exciting change of pace for Mercaz Academy students aged two through four, and offered an opportunity to welcome some new faces as well. This opportunity to see what Mercaz looks like after dark–and, for families interested in Mercaz Academy, to check out the Toddler, Nursery Aleph, and Nursery Bet program–took place after sunset, evening wear only, bunny slippers optional.
Following the adults’ recitation of Tehillim with Rabbi Fogel–because even in times of joy, we cannot forget Israel–children and their (more formally dressed) parents partied in their PJs over a delicious dinner of salad and pizza, with games for early finishers led by Assistant Principal Karen Leeper. Following the meal, the children enjoyed Music and Movement with Morah Barbra Cohen and ECC Coordinator Joanne Mlotok, dancing to the beat and finishing with “Hokey Pokey”...in Hebrew! After all their youthful energy had been thoroughly shaken up, the children enjoyed bedtime stories with Ms. Leeper and Mrs. Melissa Reinhardt. Of course, no pajama party would be complete without a late-night snack of chocolate milk and cookies and afterwards, students headed home, tired-out parents in tow, ready for a good night’s rest.
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Cool dance moves at Music and Movement. |
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Ms. Leeper reads a bedtime story. |
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Milk and cookies...the perfect bedtime snack. |
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Mercaz Students Create, Design Glow Sticks in Science Class |
Using only clear plastic straws, button batteries, tiny LED bulbs, and electrical tape, students designed and created their own glow sticks. Mrs. Vasiliou explained that each LED has a positive side and a negative side, and that if the correct side touches the battery, the electrical circuit is completed and the light turns on. After receiving their materials, students used trial and error to complete the circuits, securing the bulbs to the battery with electrical tape. When they placed clear plastic straws over the LEDs, the glow sticks were complete. “I used a red LED,” enthused one student, “and even though the light was at the bottom, when I put the straw on, it made the whole straw glow! It looked like it was covered with lava!”
Some students, seizing on the inherent possibilities, modified the design a bit. They discovered that with the addition of pencil handles, they had created a small lightsaber; paper clips made a fine guard for a fiery sword, as well.
Students enjoyed this foray into product design, and each of these engineering projects glowed with creativity and fun.
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Kitah Bet Meets the Vav Ha’hipuch
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Kitah Gimel met a surprising and silly feature of biblical Hebrew grammar this week, Vav Ha’hipuch, the Turnaround Vav.
When the Vav Ha’hipuch appears at the beginning of the word, it spins time backwards or forwards–it makes words that are past tense become future tense, and words that are future tense become past tense. Kitah Gimel students were astonished to learn that there is a prefix that acts like a time machine!
To celebrate this silly character, students in Kitah Gimel made their very own models of the Vav Ha’hipuch, decorating it with a silly face: googly crossed eyes and stuck-out tongue. They may have been inspired by this unusual vav in their own pose here, as well.
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Bundling Produce for Parshat Vayeishev |
This was our last week in the GrowTorah garden before winter, and Mercaz students learned that Parshat Vayeishev opens with Yaakov settled in Canaan. Yaakov’s son, Yosef, dreamed that he and his brothers were harvesting and tying bundles of grain, and eleven bundles of grain bowed to his bundle of grain. Unfortunately, when Yosef shared this dream with his brothers, they felt that the eleven bundles must represent each of them. Therefore, they concluded that Yosef was trying to rule over them, and they were filled with jealousy and resentment.
Mercaz students flipped these bundles from the parsha into a positive by making bundles of besamim (in this case, scented herbs) with the hardy and fragrant sage still growing in our garden. These–in addition to the last of the parsnips, carrots, and cabbages harvested by students–were earmarked for donation (although we enjoyed a few little tastes).
Afterwards, Mercaz Academy students were honored to be presented with a Certificate of Appreciation for their many donations of fresh, organic produce to the needy.
Sleep well, GrowTorah garden. We’ll work you again in the spring!
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Sage leaves smell amazing. |
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Tuesday, December 12
- Join us! Chanukah Chagigah, 6:00-8:30 pm
Wednesday, December 13
- Rosh Chodesh Tevet PTA Pizza Day
Thursday, December 14
- Join us for a Home Game! Mercaz Mustangs Boys Basketball vs. HAFTR, 6:15 pm
Sunday, December 17
- Join us! Mercaz Mustangs Boys Basketball vs. Yeshivah of Flatbush, 4:30 pm
Monday, December 18
- Join us for a Home Game! Mercaz Mustangs Girls Basketball vs. Yeshivah of Flatbush SH, 7:30 pm
Thursday, December 21
- Join us! Mercaz Mustangs Girls Basketball vs. Yeshivah of Flatbush RD, 7:30 pm
Monday, December 25
Tuesday, December 26
- Join us! Mercaz Mustangs Girls Basketball vs. Yeshivat Har Torah, 7:30 pm
Monday, January 1
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No school: New Year's Day
Tuesday, January 2
- Join us for a Home Game! Mercaz Mustangs Boys Basketball vs. Yeshiva of Central Queens, 7:00 pm
Wednesday, January 3
- Join us for a Home Game! Mercaz Mustangs Girls Basketball vs. North Shore Hebrew Academy, 7:30
Thursday, January 4
- Join us! Second Grade Chagigat HaChumash
Monday, January 15
- Join us! First Grade Chagigat HaSiddur
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