Phoenix Hebrew Academy Dear Parents, As I continue to introduce the many upgrades and enhance- ments which our school has made to its academic program and educational infrastructure for the new school year to you, I would like to focus on two additional ones this week. The first is the expansion of our already successful STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) program to include Robotics. For those unfamiliar with the program in general, our STEAM program is a fully integrated hands on experience. Our students discover many scientific con- cepts through design and experimentation. Aside from our two annual major STEAM expos, our Science Fair and In- vention Convention, our students also engage in many labora- tory experiments. From testing their bodies to see if they can achieve homeostasis to observing living things produce energy through cellular respiration; from discovering the micro world of atoms and their structures and behaviors to the macro universe by observing Einstein's theory of rela- tivity through demonstrating the concept of gravitational waves, each module reinforces our students' understanding of a plethora of scientific concepts. As previously men- tioned, this year we are happy to announce that PHA will join the CIJE (Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education) Robotics tournament, with more information to come in fu- ture weeks! We are also very excited about a new STEAM expo which we will debut this January, our Torah Science Fair, integrating science with Torah in a way which brings the beauty of Hashem’s grand master plan to the fore! In so doing, we actually are moving beyond merely a STEAM pro- gram, and into a STREAM one, which includes Religion as well! The second enhancement on which I would like to focus is our Judaic studies resource program. Using the time- tested and highly effective Kriah Scan, produced by Aish Dos in Monsey, NY, and approved by Torah Umesorah, as a benchmark assessment tool, we have almost completed as- sessing every student’s Hebrew read- ing level for both accuracy and fluency in grades 2-8. Once we have complied this data, we will use it to determine eligibility for entrance into the re- source program, so that every student can receive the individualized program they deserve in every area of our school’s curriculum. Shabbat Shalom, Yisroel Weiner Parshat Shoftim 7 Elul, 5779 Sep. 7, 2019 From the desk of the Principal Shabbat times C.L.: 6:29 in: 6:47 out: 7:24 Weekly Window Upcoming Birthdays 9/8– Dena Weiner 9/8– Ezra Hirsch 9/9– Moshe Baer Happy Birthday! Classroom News 2s painted toilet paper rolls that will be used to decorate the classroom! 3s had fun mixing water with soap and using a straw to blow bubbles! Pre-K introduced the letter A! Kindergarten is on their way to becoming Kriya Champs! We learned Alef through Vet and even added a komatz! 1st Grade learned all about the shofar and its sounds. We enjoyed holding different types of actual Shofrot! 2nd Grade is excited to learn Chumash! 3rd Grade is working on classifying animals into groups based on their physical features! 4th Grade just finished Chapter 1 in Math! 5th Grade is working on their landform projects, designing 3D versions of their favorite natural landmarks! 6th Grade learned why making good hypotheses are important to the scientific method! 7th Grade Boys & 8th Grade Boys are each learning how to decipher the steps of the Gemo- rah. In Halacha they learned what to do if someone said the wrong bracha! 7th Grade Girls researched the ancient land- scape of Mesopotamia and compared it to our modern day landmarks of the area! 8th Grade Girls practiced how to measure the volume of irregular shaped objects via the water displacement method!