Spotlights on...

Creating content and sharing ideas and artistic expressions is easier and more common than ever before. The Middle School students in Mr. Rosenberg’s Digital Creative Exploratory Class are gaining the skills to help them do exactly that - create content that allows them to express themselves in the digital world.

We are so excited to celebrate that the Junior Garden Club is officially up and running! This week, six amazing fourth-graders and four wonderful fifth-graders came out to the PJA garden with their masks and gardening gloves on, to help bring this growing space and learning community back to life.

First graders began to engage in the tough and necessary conversations about racism through their literacy curriculum. In a guided discussion, students shared what they know about the word “racism.” Following the discussion, their teacher read them the book “A Kids Book About Racism” by Jelani Memory.

Last Friday, Middle School students and staff were invited to participate in an optional after school activity of shaping challah together over Zoom. The idea came from two 7th grade students reminiscing about the summer cooking class.

This week all of our K-8th grade students received a “kit” of carefully selected supplies and materials that they will use to enhance PJA’s distance learning program. Thank you to all of the teachers who compiled these materials.

On July 6th, the quiet hallways of Portland Jewish Academy were once again filled with voices and laughter; as a group of children ages one through four returned to school for PJA’s Early Childhood summer program.

We cannot count how many times we have said “unprecedented” in the last three months, and here we are saying it again. This year’s 8th Grade Graduation Celebration was unprecedented and unforgettable.