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Last week, the Rambam Mesivta community had a special assembly, led by Rabbi Yotav Eliach, Principal of Rambam and noted author of Judaism, Zionism, and the Land of Israel, commemorating the anniversary of the United Nation’s passage of the Partition Plan on November 29, 1947.

Recently, the Silverstein Hebrew Academy (SHA), together with the school’s PTA, sponsored an engaging parenting lecture hosted by SHA parents Bianca and Edwin Shirazian. The event, titled “Staying Calm, Cool, and Collected: Parenting with the Conscious Discipline Method,” featuring parenting expert Chanie Kaller, consisted of parents receiving practical advice on parenting young children, teens, and young adults.

The second graders at the Bais Yaakov Academy of Queens are becoming better readers every day! They recently read “Bremen Town Musicians,” a dramatic fairy tale. The text has continuous dialogue and a repetitive pattern of events that create a story structure both entertaining and fun to read. There are singing animals that share a common problem, outsmart robbers, and find jobs as musicians. Since drama is meant to be acted out, the second graders used this opportunity to develop their dramatic reading and performing skills! In small groups, the girls prepared to perform the play to their classmates. The constant practice and rereading increased their reading fluency. The text has plenty of dialogue, which helped developed their awareness of appropriate expression while reading.

In the 2017-2018 school year, HANC Plainview invested in an optional Mindfulness course for the staff members who were interested. The sessions were run by Licensed Clinical Psychologists and Social Workers at the Center for Cognitive and Dialectical Behavior Therapy, based in New York. Last year, only a handful of teachers kept Mindfulness actively going, which led Mrs. Lynda Last and Mrs. Francie Goldberg to apply for a grant to bring Mindfulness back to every classroom. They received a $1,500 Microgrant from The Jewish Education Project, the only organization that works across the New York Jewish community denominations and institutional settings to help educators develop new, innovative ways to engage and educate Jewish kids, teens, and families.

This past week, 11 students had a very special opportunity to attend a service mission to Houston, organized by Mrs. Aliza Konig, Assistant Principal, in conjunction with NCSY. The purpose of the mission was to help Houston citizens who are still rebuilding their homes after Hurricane Harvey. The students worked alongside volunteers, from the disaster relief group St. Bernard’s Parish, to reconstruct a wall in the home of a hurricane victim.