#25 updates

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Shaloh House Update #25 (5772) Friday, April 27, 2012 Light Candles at 7:22 pm Page # 1

Shaloh House

UPDATE April 27, 2012 5 Iyar, 5772 #25 The Shaloh House Jewish Dאy School Newsletter

OPEN HOUSE

MON, MAY 21

REGIONAL SCIENCE FAIR

SUN, APR 29, 10—1 PM

LAG B’OMER

CELEBRATION/PARADE THU, MAY 10

Yom Ha’atzmaut in K2 Juniors

The kindergarten Juniors 2 class had a great time celebrating Israel’s birthday, Yom Ha’atzmaut, on Thurs-

day. We loved to sing Hatikvah in the morning, dance with our homemade flags, and eat yummy falafel with

pita and hummus at lunch time.

While making our flags, we were also able to learn a little bit about shapes—we saw how two triangles can

make a star! We also learned how to say the colors of the Israeli flag, blue and white, in Hebrew.

We sang a special song, called

“Kachol V’Lavan” about the colors of

the flag and how they remind us of

the colors of the sea and the desert.

It was a really fun day!

Happy Birthday Israel!

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Parshas Tazria-Metzora

Choosing to Not Be Hurt

By Yaakov Lieder

“My relationship with my older brother, who is ten years

my senior, has been going from bad to

worse over the years,” a reader wrote to

me this week. “He seems to have forgot-

ten that we no longer live in our parents’

home, and that he is no longer 15 years

old and I am no longer the little kid whom

he bullies and bosses around. I am now

35, married, with three children; yet my

brother keeps putting me down and treats

me like a five-year-old.

“According to a recent article of yours,”

the reader continued, “all I need to do to

solve the problem is to change the way I

listen to him. This approach seems to put

the responsibility on me, whereas the fault

really lies in his abusive language. It is

obvious that the situation will not change unless he

starts to realize that he is hurting me and is prepared to

change the way he speaks to me, as well as apologizing

for his past behavior.” He then asked, “Do you have any

special recipe for my abusive brother?”

I responded by saying: If your brother would ask me for

advice, I would talk to him about not hurting other peo-

ple, especially a brother. However, because I am not

sure if your brother reads my column or not, and be-

cause, by the sound of it, you don’t have much control

over the way your brother behaves, the only person to

whom I can give advice is you. My advice to you is: con-

trol the one person in the world over whom you do have

control, and that person is you.

Bear in mind that, technically speaking, when your

brother speaks abusively to you, what is coming out of

his mouth is just a bunch of hot air, which happens to

make various sounds. And these sounds have no needles

or arrows in them; all it is, is hot air. You now have to

make a choice as to how to decode this air, and what

interpretation to give to it.

The choices you have are:

To decode it as a hurtful message, espe-

cially if it reminds you of the time when

you were a helpless child and unable to

defend yourself. By using this interpreta-

tion, you have now taken the hot air and

turned it into arrows that hurt you. This

causes increasing resentment towards

your brother. As a result, you may even

develop physical symptoms, such as ul-

cers or high blood pressure.

On the other hand, you can choose the

option of deciding that the hot air that comes out of your

brother’s mouth is nothing more than hot air. Just as it is

not your fault if your brother burps as a result of the

food he eats, so too, it is not your responsibility or your

fault that the words that come out of your brother’s

mouth are abusive—it is his problem.

Most of the time, people who go around abusing and

finding the negative in others are, in essence, unhappy

people who have a lot of problems of their own. They

want to transfer their problems on to you. You have the

choice: to take them on board, or to say, “No, thank

you.” From www.Shaloh.org/Magazine

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When Was Your

Last Spiritual?

By Yossy Goldman

In this week’s Torah reading we read all about the kohen

examining people to determine whether

they were afflicted by tzaraat, the lep-

rous curse. It was a physical inspection

which had spiritual implications. The per-

son might be pronounced tahor (pure)

or, G-d forbid, tamei (impure), all de-

pending on the results of the kohen‘s

examination.

I couldn’t help thinking about going to

the doctor for the requisite annual medi-

cal examination, or “physical.” We go

through the routine checkup—height,

weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and

stress tests on the treadmill and up and

down the little staircase.

But have you ever thought of going for a “spiritual”?

What’s our “height”? Do we walk tall? Are we proud and

upright Jews, or are we apologetically stooped and bent

over by the burden of an inferiority complex?

What about our “weight”? Are we on a well-balanced

diet of Torah, the sustenance of our souls, or do we suf-

fer from spiritual malnutrition?

And how is our heart doing? A Jewish heart doesn’t only

pump blood; it pumps warmth and love. A healthy Jew-

ish heart is the emotional center of the person. It

emotes and feels the pain of another. And healthy hearts

are inspired by events that point unmistakably to the

hand of G-d in the world. If we aren’t feeling what we

should be, then we might be suffering from blocked ar-

teries.

When the doctor took my blood pressure, I immediately

made the obvious connection—tefillin. I remembered the

story of the simple farmer who went for his first medical

checkup. When the doctor checked his pressure, he

asked what that was all about. The doctor explained pa-

tiently that he was checking the heart rate. “But why are

you holding my arm if you want to see how my heart

is?” “When I check your hand,” replied the physician, “I

know how your heart is.” The hand that gives charity, for

example, indicates that it’s connected to a

healthy Jewish heart.

A Jewish heart doesn’t only pump blood; it

pumps warmth and love Then came the

stress test—up the stairs and down the

stairs, up again and down again, and again

and again. How do we handle the ups and

downs of life? Are we smug and arrogant

when we’re up, and dejected and de-

pressed when we’re down? How do we deal

with stress? Do we trust in G-d that every-

thing has a purpose, and a positive one at

that? Or do we become angry and bitter at

life’s unkind twists of fate?

Finally, there was the treadmill. I really dislike treadmills.

After two minutes, I said to the nurse I’d had enough.

“The doctor said you must do four minutes,” she in-

formed me sternly. “Four minutes?” I cried. “This feels

like four hours!”

Life can be a tedious treadmill. We find ourselves run-

ning and running and getting nowhere fast. A grueling

rat race, where even if you win you’re still a rat—all of it

leaves us wondering what it’s all about and why we are

working so hard with no meaningful, consequential re-

ward.

So this year, in addition to going for a physical, why not

go for a spiritual? Find a kohen, a Jewish spiritual

teacher/healer, who can search your soul for its healthy

characteristics as well as your necessary growth points,

and prescribe a spiritual fitness program tailored for you

and your neshamah. May we all be healthy, physically

and spiritually. From www.Shaloh.org/Magazine

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Toddler Room

This week we celebrated a very important date for Israel-The Independence day- Yom

Azmaut. To commemorate the day we made a spe-

cial project - an Israeli flag.

We also continued to talk about

spring , which is finally here, and made

a special project .

This week's letter is P- for puzzle and pizza.

We had a lot of fun using real puzzle

pieces to decorate the letter.

This week we read two Parshiot- Tazria and Metzora.

We discussed Shabbos and made a Kiddush cup, and we also discussed

Lashon Hara and made a special sign to remind ourselves to only speak

nicely to others and about them.

We also continued to practice our songs for the end of year performance.

All in all, a very busy week!

We wish you and your family a Good Shabbos,

Morah Anna, Morah Leah and Morah Masha

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Preschool Room

Boruch Hashem, we had a very busy week. We learned all about the parashiyot of Tazria and

Metzora. They teach us that you are not allowed to speak lashon hora. We may only speak

nicely with each other. We even made a lashon hora stop sign, so that if we see someone

about to speak lashon hora, we can stop them by showing them our sign and saying

“Shhh! That’s lashon hora!”

Please ask me about Parshiyot Tazria and Metzora:

• The parashiyot of the week are (Tazria and Metzora).

• What big lesson do we learn from these parashiyot? (to never speak lashon hora).

• What is lashon hora? (saying something not nice about someone else.)

• What used to happen to someone who spoke lashon hora? (They would get tzara’as.)

• Where did the tzara’as appear? (First on their house, then their clothes, and finally, on the person)

• Who decided if it was really tzara’as? (the kohen).

• Where does someone who has tzara’as have to go? (away from everybody)

These are our lashon hora songs:

1. Oh, lashon hora, Oh, lashon hora 2. Don’t talk lashon hora, don’t,

Lashon hora is a terrible thing. If you know you shouldn’t, then you won’t.

We can not speak it, Guard your lips from speaking evil

We can not hear it. In your house, your school and shtiebel.

Lashon hora is a terrible thing. Don’t talk lashon hora, don’t!

This week we added a new cloud to our Aleph-Bet Kuf for Keshet. The other Kuf words we found were Kid-

dush, which we make on Shabbat and Kubia (block).

In A-B-C, we made a “Q for Q-tips.” Believe it or not, Q-tips can be used for many things besides the ear

cleaning. In our classroom we painted using Q-tips as brushes. We also gave Quarters, which start with a Q,

to tzedaka. We learned a song about Q:

(Sung To: “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”)

Q is for queen with a crown on her head.

Q is for quilt that covers my bed.

Q is for questions I like asking.

Q is for ducklings’ quack-quack-quacking.

Q is for quarter and quick and quill.

I like Q and always will.

R is for ribbon, rocket, ring, rooster, rainbow and robot.

Happy birthday to Roee. Mazal Tov!

Shabbat Shalom,

Morah Ruti, Morah Polina and Morah Basya

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Kindergarten Junior 1

In honor of spring, we made beautiful spring flower hats together, using large coffee filters

and water based paints.

With the kids all wearing their hats our class looked like a flower garden.

The parsha talks about what happens when a person doesn’t speak nicely, so we decided to focus on the

positive by talking about how a person should speak to someone else. The kids came up with a great list of

kind words and then we played a fun game using the words. The kids took turns being blindfolded and

guessing who was the friend who was saying kind words to them.

In Hebrew reading we are finishing up the last few letters of the Aleph Beis. We talked about how Shin

starts the word Shema and that Shin has a dot on the same side as our Shema hand, the right. We also

started putting letters together with vowels, introducing the Komatz.

In English reading we are so excited to be starting to read words. The first group of words we are reading

are the short vowel ‘a’ sounds, like man, bat, and tag. The kids have made word wheels with words that end

in the same sound but begin with different letters.

Parsha Questions:

1) The Parshas of the week are_____ and _______. Tazria and Met-

zora.

2) What should Mitzva should parents do when they have a new baby

boy? Give him a Bris when he is 8 days old.

3) What sickness would Jewish people get in the times of the Mishkan

if they did something wrong? Tzara’as.

4) Who would check if the white spot was really Tzara’as? A Kohein.

5) On what could a person get Tzara’as? On their body, their clothes or their house.

6) What present would Hashem sometimes give people who had to break their homes to get rid of the

Tzara’as? They would find treasures buried in the walls.

7) What would a person do to get rid of their Tzara’as on their body? He would have to be all by himself

for 7 days to think about how he behaved and to decide he won’t do it again. This is called Teshuva.

8) What was the main thing wrong, people would get Tzara’as for? Lashon Hara – Speaking not nicely

about other people.

9) What are some examples of nice and kind words we can say to our friends? Let’s play, you are kind,

you are my friend….

Have a Good Shabbos,

From Morah Yael and Morah Dasha

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Kindergarten Junior 2

This week in Kindergarten Juniors 2 we had two celebrations!

On Monday we celebrated Rosh Chodesh Iyar by making crowns and talking about how we should say nice

things to each other. Saying nice things is also something that we learned about in this week’s parsha, Par-

shat Tazria. Looks like Rosh Chodesh Iyar was right on time!

Our second celebration was on Thursday as we celebrated Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s birthday. We made

individual flags to carry and wave, and decorated a big flag to hang next to our classroom. It was so inter-

esting to learn how we can make a Magen David out of two trian-

gles! We had a special party where we danced with our flags and

sang songs about Israel. We also sang part of the song Hatikvah.

In English we are reading with the short vowel A sound. We are

also reading in Hebrew class.

In Math we are practicing addition with the numbers 1, 2 and 3.

we are also counting to 30 forwards and backwards.

In Science this week we started to learn about bugs! We read the book Ugh! A Bug! and talked about nice

ways to treat bugs when we see them outside or inside. We also learned about many kinds of bugs, such as

ants, worms, spiders, bees, and butterflies. We talked about what kids of foods the bugs like to eat, where

they live, and how they move. After reading the book, we

drew pictures of some of our favorite bugs.

In honor of spring, we also decorated the tree in our classroom

with beautiful flowers.

We love spring and seeing the flowers blooming when we play

outside.

We also have been using our numbered paper flowers to count

the Omer.

This week we counted up to 19!

Have a Good Shabbos,

From Morah Marina and Morah Chava

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Kindergarten Senior

Parshas Tazria-Metzora

Math

One group is regrouping and subtracting numbers less than twenty. They are counting by tens up to one

hundred and working on word problems. The second group is counting by hundreds up to one thousand, for-

wards and backwards. They are identifying three digit large numbers over smaller numbers and are breaking

numbers into hundreds, tens, and ones. They also reviewed adding double digits without carrying.

English

One group continues reading with long vowel ‘a’. when ‘ai’ walks together it makes the sound as in: mail and

rain. We are sending home their book next week. Words wheels were made to practice reading. They are

reading words with ‘e’ at the end and ‘ei’. They wrote words next to the matching pic-

tures. They enjoyed playing bingo, separating long ‘a’ words from short ‘a’ words. The

second group read a book about human and animal skeletons. They wrote a short story

about spring and practiced separating each word, using capital letters in the beginning

of the sentence, and using a period at the end of a thought. They read stories and an-

swered questions to understand the story better. Please encourage your child to write

their thoughts/experiences on paper at home.

Parsha

Parshas tzaria mitzora discusses the concept of using lashon hatov-nice, truthful words. We learned that our

mouth has two fences-lips and teeth. Hash-m gave us a mouth to use properly. Some examples given by the

students include using nice words, learn torah, do mitzvos, and daven.

In the times of the Beis Hamikdash, someone who spoke not nicely got white spots on their skin, tzora’as,

and needed to be by themselves until they did teshuva. Also, if someone lied about an object they own, their

house got tzora’as and all objects needed to be removed from the house; everyone saw that he had the ob-

ject after all.

Alef Bais

One group is working on shoorook and the second group is working on exceptions in nekudos. Both groups

are working very hard and are progressing well.

With wishes for a wonderful Shabbos,

Morahs Esther, Shulamis Yehudis and Tova

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Mazal Tov Teachers, students and staff would like to offer a hearty Mazal Tov to Rabbi Dan and Sara Rodkin on a birth of a boy,

Shlomo Yosef

And to Rabbi Moishe and Goldy Mindick on a birth of a girl,

Chana Nisa

May they grow up to bring much happiness to their parents and all of Klal Yisroel.

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Elementary School NEWS

Chumash

Rabbi Moishe Mindick

1st Grade

First grade regular Chumash celebrated our first Siyum for finishing Perek

Aleph of Sefer Bereishis! Enjoying grape juice and apples, each student

shared their favorite part of the first chapter of Torah and then we all sang "siman tov umazal tov." Making

sure to follow Torah with more Torah, we then continued right into Perek Beis, where Hashem rests for the

first time, and creates Shabbos.

In after-school extended Chumash, our 1st graders have been learning "you" suffixes (male/ female and sin-

gular/ plural).

2nd and 3rd Grades

2nd and 3rd grade regular Chumash recently began a new, and famous perek: the Akeidas Yitzchak, perek

Chof Beis in Parshas Vayera. In addition to learning many new vocabulary words, our students are beginning

to understand what true "Avodas Hashem" is: being willing to give up everything for Hashem. Thankfully, it is

an idea which comes very naturally to such sweet Jewish souls.

Our 2nd-3rd graders have been learning past/ future vavs ("magic vavs"), and they will/ he will suffixes. In

honor of the Rebbe's birthday, 11 Nissan, our class also featured a series of stories from the Rebbe's life, as

well as a background introduction of his family and childhood.

Advanced Chumash

Rabbi Ilan Meyers

1st Grade

In the 1st Grade Advanced Chumash, students are near completing the 1st perek of Bereishis. Students just

completed their second Chumash test and have been focusing on good study habits as well as efficient test

taking skills. These skills, together with working on shorashim and common Chumash flashcards, has been

sharpening and preparing our students for many more pesukim and perakim to come!

2nd and 3rd Grades

The 2/3rd grade has been learning the story of Avraham buying the Mea’rat Hamachpeilah complimented

with the study of Rashi. Do you know the two reasons how Kiryat Arba earned its name? Ask a 2/3rd

grader!

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4th/5th Grades

In the 4/5th grade, students are learning about the different ways to approach challenges in life by learning

how Yakov prepares to meet his wicked and angry brother Eisav. Students have learned that while Tefillah is

important, other practical measures must be taken as well.

6th Grade

In the 6th Grade, student shave completed the third perek of Shmos which discussed Moshe’s first interaction

with Hashem as he charged with the mission of leading the Jewish people out of Egypt.

Language Arts

Merlyn Carey

1st Grade

8, 9, 10….10 parts of speech bahahaha (please cue Sesame Street thunder and lightning.) Ten parts of

speech, three types of end stop punctuation, six more forms of internal punctuation, and writing that aver-

ages one full page. Who says English doesn’t count? True enough, no one at Shaloh House, yet some puns

demand usage, just as we’re learning in class how to use all of these elements of grammar to more clearly

express our thoughts and get our meaning across.

We’ve been spending our writer’s workshop time polishing drafts from earlier in the year, and in the process

finding so many details we can add to our pieces. This is the time of year where our pieces get noticeably

longer and the line for editing help gets noticeably shorter. Deleting redundant “and’s” and “because’s” hap-

pen long before the papers leave the desks. More and more of the words chosen are based on patterns we’ve

learned, leaving only the truly extraordinary word choices left to get help with. As pieces get longer, they are

also gaining depth; lists of separate thoughts are giving way to sections that speak of one aspect of a big

thought at a time. Yes, we are talking solid paragraph building. Over the course of the rest of the year, we’ll

be working on forming paragraphs as well as formatting different types of writing. We’ll be tackling friendly

letters very soon as part of a special project, to be revealed shortly.

2nd Grade

A picture is worth a thousand words, and we’ve found a wellspring of words from a series of pictures we

looked at for story prompts. In fact, we found so many words, only a full-blown book will hold them all.

Thus, the second grade started a book project. Our second draft stories have been turned into working

drafts for publication. We’ve been working on our author’s blurbs to introduce the stories inspired by Chris

Van Allsburg as well. Over the course of the next few weeks, our second drafts will be raised to the lofty

heights of third drafts, introductions will be typed, and our book will be gathered, complied, and copied for

distribution.

Along the way we’ll continue with our spelling connect books, reading “A Gift to Treasure,” adding to our

writer’s toolbox by learning about phrases and clauses and how to diagram complex sentences.

3rd Grade

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How to find key facts among hundred of words quickly, has been the challenge we’ve undertaken lately. Us-

ing articles from “Time for Kids,” we’ve been putting together a tip sheet for how to hunt for information effi-

ciently. While reading the entire article is easy and fun, when articles grow from a few paragraphs to a few

dozen, or a few dozen pages we need to know how to find “just” the facts we need, now. We’ve been look-

ing at how articles are organized focusing on how to use the title and headers to narrow the search for the

answers we’re looking for. By exploring topic sentences, we’re discovering to when they hint at the content

of the paragraph (or offer a “hook”) and when they state it outright.

We’ve been learning to read “backwards” to start with the question and then move into the article. Whether

it is a question we’ve created or a question from an assignment. We’re using these questions as a guide for

understanding the key points of an article and to judge the scope of the text. Finally, we’ve been checking to

make sure that our answers make sense, on there own- as in “Is it a complete answer, in the form of a com-

plete sentence?” We’ve also been making sure that the type of answer we give fits the type of question

asked. Are we looking for a number answer? A comparison answer? and most importantly are we using key

words to check that our answer fully addresses the question.

4th & 5th Grade

We’ve learned how to create a brainstorm to help with our writing process, we’ve learned how to focus on a

key event from our life to write a person narrative, and we’ve learned how to frame questions to help re-

search a new topic. Currently we’re putting these pieces together in a new way; we’re using these skills as

we learn how to interview people to write a writer’s biography from the class. Students have created a brain-

storm of topics they are willing to share about their lives as writers. These brainstorms were carefully shuf-

fled and passed out to other students, who are using them as the background material to create interview

questions, so that they can write the about a fellow author. We’re looking at when to paraphrase and when

to use direct quotes in our writing, and of course how to cite direct quotes. We’re looking at how to narrow

the focus of an article, yet still keep to length requirements. We’re practicing a new means of gathering infor-

mation to use in non-fiction writing, and we’re having a grand time doing it all.

We’ve also been working in our spelling connection books, expanding our understanding of grammar, and

visiting the time of the Civil War in our class book “Shades of Gray.”

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#25 updates

Documents

abusive brother

older brother

shaloh house update

bunch of hot air

pm page

years old

yom haatzmaut

lunch time