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The Yeshiva of Central Queens hosted its annual Yachad Shabbaton. On January 31 and February 1, Shabbos Parshas Bo, students, staff, and alumni from the Yeshiva gathered to share in a Shabbos filled with learning, ruach, and the making of new friends. Community members opened their homes to house Yachad members and staff, making it possible for them to participate in this amazing Shabbaton.

MTA took second place at the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education (CIJE) Hack-A-Thon, held on Wednesday, January 29, at Yeshiva University. The event brought together 170 students from 18 different schools, who were divided into teams and given five hours and the necessary computer hardware to develop solutions that address environmental problems.

On Sunday, February 2, the Bnos Malka staff gathered together to hear from Dr. Jefferey Lichtman. Dr. Lichtman is the director emeritus of Yachad and current Professor and Lucille Weidman Chair of the newly-established graduate program in Jewish general and special education at Touro College. Drawing from his great knowledge and expertise in the field of education, Dr. Lichtman shared techniques and strategies to help engage, motivate, and inspire every student. Teachers walked away invigorated for the second half of the year, empowered with additional tools to reach every child, a mission at Bnos Malka Academy. Dr. Lichtman’s presentation is but one of the ways that Bnos Malka and Touro College are collaborating to enhance the field of education.

At HALB Lev Chana, our teachers are always looking for fun, innovative, and multi-sensory ways to facilitate the learning of new information by our children. In our four-years-of-age Nursery classes, using Handwriting Without Tears as our guide, the morot introduced the children to alphabet letters through visual, auditory, concrete, and sensory experiences. For example, the children learned about quicksand for the letter Q: They looked at, felt, and combined three ingredients – cornstarch, sand, and water – and reported their observations while their morot encouraged them to make connections to prior knowledge. “It looks dirty and black,” “It was grainy and felt like porridge,” “It felt like the ooblik from last week” were some of their remarks.

On Sunday, January 26, MTA’s Robotics team put on an incredible performance at the First Tech Challenge Qualifier. The team’s robot outranked more than 30 other robots to take first place during the ranking portion of the event, and came in second by only a few points in a nail-biting final match during the elimination rounds.

SKA’s new initiative, Advisory, led by the Guidance Department, has proven to be a valuable resource for our students. Small and personalized groups of girls, guided by faculty members, allow students to form close relationships with teachers and peers while providing guidance and support. Each month has a theme that is relevant and interesting.