WE ARE MORE THAN 1,000 STRONG!

We won the $18,000 grant from the Avi Chai Foundation!

SAR was challenged to find 1000 people to donate $18 to the school in a 3-week period of time. We surpassed the goal of 1000, and the number keeps rising every day. As a result, SAR will now be receiving an $18,000 matching grant from the Avi Chai Foundation. In total, we will have raised more than $40,000 for the Scholarship Fund, with involvement from parents, grandparents, students, friends, extended family, and others! What an amazing show of dedication by the larger SAR Community!  

WE REACH HIGH NOTES FOR ISRAEL

The students at SAR Academy are looking forward to marching in this year's parade in honor of Israel.

We thank the 6th grade art elective students

and the wonderful 8th grade volunteers for planning and painting the banners for this year's Celebrate Israel Parade. Our Theme WE REACH HIGH NOTES FOR ISRAEL is being illustrated with symbols of instruments, musical staff and notes.

We also want to thank  the 4th graders for
constructing over 300 colorful ribbon maracas to be used as part of our prop.

A special thank you to Mrs. Adeena Rosen for volunteering her time and donating the maracas that the children will hold at the parade.

Chani Jaskoll

Renada Cohen

If you have a Target Charge Card, you can designate SAR to receive 1% of your charges as a donation.  

To register your card, visit www.target.com/tcoe
SAR Target ID #11822

              *Memorial Day Tribute*

To send our students into a long weekend endowed with the meaning of the extra day: enjoying the freedoms we hold so dear, grades 1-8 gathered on the steps for a Memorial Day Tribute. "This Monday, is not only the day where families get together to have a barbeque or where stores have special Memorial Day sales. As we know from Yom HaZikaron two weeks ago, Memorial Day is a day of HaKarat HaTov to show how grateful we are for the freedoms we have." Rabbi Krauss began.

Beverly Nerenberg, SAR parent and sister of Major Stuart Adam Wolfer who lost his life protecting America in Iraq, reminded the students that many families gather together on Memorial Day to remember and mourn their relatives who made the ultimate sacrifice for the United States of America.

Ariella Gentin in Grade 7 read a poem about remembering fallen soldiers. The school joined together in the Pledge of Allegiance and a tefilah and closed the program by singing the National Anthem together, led by the choir and accompanied by Morah Naomi on the piano.  

               *Yom Yerushalayim*  

  

    

How many pieces of Lego does it take to build Yerushalayim?  More than the students at SAR could count, (over 50,000!).  With Building Blocks Workshop: Jewish History Construction Series, developed by Stephen W. Schwartz AIA, an architect in Livingston, N.J., and his team: Steven Perlman and Bunny Schwartz, our students worked on an enormous detailed drawing of a map of Yerushalayim, placed on the floor of the gym, upon which they built a replica of Jerusalem out of Lego. The scale of the map alone created huge impact on the students and encouraged a sense of teamwork, since being part of such a enormous undertaking (building Jerusalem) can't be accomplished alone. This unique, hands-on group learning experience brought Jewish history alive through an exciting, memorable activity. As Stephen said, "As an architect, I work in the visual vocabulary. The visual impact of these programs on a youngster is BOLD and therefore memorable. They will talk about it and they will remember it."

  

"This activity isn't only fun, you get to learn about Yerushalayim," one student said.

  

                   *Rashi Breakfast*

Rabbi Krauss welcomed everyone to the Third Grade Rashi Breakfast explaining that since learning about the Power of Words this year, the students were ready to share with their guests the power of Rashi's words as well as their own words to express thanks and gratitude to the people who keep us safe. Local police women arrived to much applause and Rabbi Krauss thanked them for their bravery.  

The third grade classes created four beautiful and colorful murals based on the four parshiot studied in third grade. Each mural is decorated with illustrations of two Rashis that were studied in class. Daniella Glass-3X, Abe Weitzman-3W, Yonina Semer-3Y, and Uri Craimer-3X each shared a D'var Torah which explained one of the Rashis on the class murals that are hanging in the lunchroom. Each D'var Torah was greeted with a round of applause from the guests and a hand shake from Rabbi Krauss. The students, happy to participate, smiled all the way back to their seats. The third graders then paired with their familial chavruta to learn from Rashi's commentary together. The students engaged their parents in analytic learning and the search for "what do you think is bothering Rashi in this pasuk?" 

                         *Mike Schreck Memorial Games*  

~fun . . . Kyra Weisberger 

Spoken From The Heart

                                           *Shabbat Poetry* 

First graders, Dahlia Bernstein, Galya Cohen, Sadie Lieberman, and Reyna Perelis looked at a list of Shabbat related words and used them to organize and formulate them to create these poems:

 
Filled With Precious Prayer

The holy Torah

with laws and peace

and hopeful stories

fills my soul

with beautiful prayers

Sweet Smells of Shabbat

The queen

loves her spices

so she sends

her messenger

for more.

The candle's flame

with sweet aroma

pure and heavenly

fill Shabbat

with joy.

~happy because we get the Torah . . . Tamar Katz 

Book Review

                                   *The Sword and the Darrow*

                                                                                ~Akiva Sturm

Last summer, a teacher asked me if I would consider reading a copy of a book called The Sword of Darrow by Hal and Alex Malchow before it was published and writing a review on it. It sounded like a great idea to me because I love to read and I was wondering what a book looks like before it gets published. The first copy of the book that I got was small and it was printed on really thin paper. When I got the book, I was excited to find out that Hal and Alex were father and son. The book was really interesting and had an exciting story. The authors wanted to know what we thought about all parts of the book. I thought that the beginning had too many details and made the start of the book a little confusing. I thought that they ended the book at a great place and it made people interested in reading a sequel. I filled out the review and mailed it back to the authors. Then, I got a really cool letter from the authors that said they read all of the reviews and made some changes. I was happy to hear that they were going to make the beginning of the book clearer and that there will be a sequel. They said that they added a map to the beginning of the book which was a great idea. They also changed the cover illustration which I did not think was such a great idea because I really liked the original cover. The authors announced that anyone who wrote a book report on The Sword of Darrow  would get a free copy for their school library. Miss Cohen approved the book for my January book report and now SAR has a copy in the library. Last week, I got the final edition in the mail. It is bigger than the first copy and it is printed on thick paper. The authors made all of the changes and I think that they made an even better book. The Sword of Darrow  is suspenseful and filled with great action scenes, good messages, and some really funny parts. I hope that you read it, too! 

~a good holiday because it honors the Torah . . . Sam Mandel

PARSHAT NASO    

                 by K3 students

In this parsha, our children learned that "the Levis carry the Mishkan stuff" in the desert when Bnei Yisrael had to move from one camping place to another. One child said, "One family put curtains on wagons," and another said another family "put wooden poles on wagons". They took the walls of the Mishkan apart, and then later put them together again.

Sarah remembered, "If anybody makes a mistake, they should say sorry to Hashem and the person. Choni remembered that when we daven Shmoneh Esrei, "We give ourselves a little tap with the right hand on our heart (to tell Hashem) if we did a mistake".

"When the Mishkan was built, the leaders (of the shvatim) each brought a korban," the children said, and also that there were 12 shvatim.

In their discussion, K-3 focused on Birkat Hakohanim, the bracha given by the kohanim to Bnei Yisrael. The children said, "They had to split their fingers before they put the talit on their head, and they bless us." We tried our best to make our fingers do what the kohanim do, but it was not so easy!

Not every child has seen the kohanim in shul. One girl said, "I was away that time." Some other children remember seeing the kohanim with their tallises over their heads and their arms stretched out. Lili said, "My dad did it one time. I saw him." Ari said, "My dad is a Levi person."

When asked what they thought the kohanim might be wishing for Bnei Yisrael, K-3 students said, "for everybody to be healthy"; "for nobody to be sick"; "to make a new Beit Hamikdash"; "that we will live in Yisrael one day"; and "if we have good midot, we get closer to Hashem, and He will help us more and more".

They talked about how parents may give their children this bracha along with another on  Friday night. Children said they: feel zeidy's hands on their head; a dad does it and wishes them good health; they hear "veMenashe"; both parents give the bracha; and parents switch off each week-a reminder of when Yaakov switched his hands with Efrayim and Menashe.

Be'ezrat Hashem, may we all daven with the koach of our avot and imahot, and be zochim to bring up our children in robust health of body and soul. May Hashem bless us all, and may we merit that He shine His light on us, helping us have clear vision to know what is truly important in life.

Shabbat shalom umevorach.  

~it's the end of the omer . . . Yonah Rosenfield 

               Preparing For The Parade

Donate Platelets For Neshama 

SAR Spiritwear - NEW Sting Bee Slippers, Sting Kippot, SAR PJ Pants, SAR Sweatshirts, SAR Sports Bag, SAR Magnets and more.
 To order, click here to fill out form and return to Sally Oshins in the Business Office. 
  

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