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Art Show and Science Fair

This year's Art Show and Science Fair really took the cake--sometimes literally. Science experiments ranged from camera and sneaker performance and plant growth to snake feeding behavior and the differences in human vs. canine mouth bacteria. And then there were the chemistry experiments: do ice cubes melt faster in air or water? Do you need all the ingredients those cake mix boxes call for--what happens if you leave out the eggs? The oil? The water?

The art displays chronicled a full year of student experimentation in ceramics, drawing, weaving, and silk painting as well as artist appreciation and historically important painting methods such as pointillism.

Shakespeare Performance 2008: A New Look at Venice

Weizmann 6th graders will tread the boards this year in search of the roots of prejudice. The Merchant of Venice, with its overtly antisemitic lines, poses serious emotional and moral challenges for any cast. Laura Sympson's class has been studying it closely this year, not only for the historical context of this play but also because, as she says, all may not be as it seems. As the students have learned, Shakespeare sometimes portrays Shylock as more honorable than his nemesis. What is really going on here? Come to the Shakespeare Performance in PJTC's Social Hall Thursday, May 22 at 7 p.m. and see what they make of it!

Origami Project for Peace

On May 6th, Weizmann students in grades 3-6 joined their friends at New Horizon School, a Pasadena-area Muslim school, and St. Mark's School for a very special joint project. The students folded origami pieces together that will to become part of the 2008 Origami Peace Tree Festival in Jerusalem. The pieces will be hung above the junction of four ancient, narrow covered streets in the Old City of Jerusalem, just where the Moslem, Jewish and Christian quarters of the Old City meet. As the organizers say, "In all the world, this must be one of the most appropriate places for an Origami Peace Tree!"

Weizmann, New Horizon, and St. Mark's students have been holding joint concerts every October for several years in memory of Daniel Pearl, and have participated in penpal exchanges, ecology cleanup days, friendship lunches, and other learning activities throughout the school year. Ours is one of the few such interschool programs in the U.S. fostering tolerance at the elementary school level, and our participation in the Jerusalem project is especially significant this year.

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Family Spaghetti Dinner and Math Night

Everyone reading this knows that 2 + 2 = 4. But did you know that 100 pennies weigh more than 100 dimes, and 100 nickels weigh more than each of them? Or, were you aware that by simply using marshmallows (kosher, of course) and toothpicks you could create a mathematical structure? That's exactly what the Weizmann Day School students learned at the end of February.

At our annual Family Dinner and Math Night, celebrating Weizmann's 100th Day of School, students and their families enjoyed spaghetti, songs, and an evening of exciting math activities. Teachers and sixth graders staffed booths for wacky math challenges at all levels: measuring footsteps, weighing coins, coloring bookmarks, solving puzzles, or building paper airplanes and calculating their flight distances. The students and their families also participated in group activities such as a mock election, estimating the number of candies in a jar, finding 100 ways to make 100, and finding 100 words in the words "One Hundred Days".

Weizmann at One Colorado

Cantor Mimi Haselkorn led Weizmann students in a spirited end-of-Hanukkah concert at One Colorado, a popular outdoor lunch spot in Old Town Pasadena. Top songs included:

• "I Had a Little Dreidel"
• "Oh Hanukkah" in English, Hebrew AND Yiddish
• "I'm a Latke"
• "Light one Candle"
• "Ocho Candelas para mi"

Art Encounter with Michael Rosenstein

In December, internationally known calligrapher Michael Rosenstein showed Weizmann students how to use Hebrew lettering in traditional and contemporary Jewish art. He presented slides of his work, ranging from children's posters to ketubbot and the carpet pages of an illuminated Tanakh, one of his current design projects. Then he led the lower and upper classes in dynamic art workshops to do some lettering and design of their own!

Thanksgiving Concert Goes Mod

The Weizmann Thanksgiving Concert really updated things this year. Instead of remembering the pilgrims' landing at Plymouth Rock, students jumped ahead five hundred years by celebrating that other transatlantic rock event--the British Invasion! They led off with swinging numbers like "There's a Kind of Hush" and "Downtown," and got the beat from the Psalm 3.33 rhythm section and conductor/guitarist Mr. Paul Angers. Then Kindergarten stole the show with Yellow Submarine and Henry the Eighth gave Weizmann a whole new reason to appreciate the annual Shakespeare Performance!

Sixth Grade Covers the Beat

This fall, Laura Sympson's sixth grade class launched its own school newspaper, Weizmann Kids Times, and it's gotten a great reception from the rest of the students. The sixth grade is having a great time putting their journalistic skills to work in newsgathering, interviewing students and teachers in other classes, writing, and editing, and their computer skills in typing and print production are getting a workout.

Daniel Pearl Concert 2007

On October 10, our fourth annual Daniel Pearl Concert, part of "Daniel Pearl World Music Days: Harmony for Humanity," led us off to a great start with our two Pasadena-area partner schools, St. Mark's School and the New Horizon School. Our kindergartners got together with their new pen pals from New Horizon's kindergarten class, and in November our first and second graders will be doing learning exchange activities with their pen pals from the last two years. Our sixth grade class will also attend a service with St. Mark's School students the third week in October.

>>Read what the Pasadena Star News had to say about our concert and the first Shalom/Salaam learning exchange activity of the new year!
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