The winning ticket in the latest extra-credit raffle was that of Joshua Sniper – a 9th grade Scholars program student. Josh has been devoting many hours on building 3d models with the Google Sketch Up program. Although he discovered the program just recently, he was immediately drawn to its capabilities and has been progressing in it with remarkable speed, improving in the details, the scope and the exactitude of his models. We hope his new iPad 3 will serve him well not only in play but in studies too.
Only one more extra credit raffle left for this academic year. Good luck to all the participants!
Thursday April 19th was Holocaust Remembrance Day or Yom Hashoah in Hebrew. During our weekly Friday afternoon assembly, Mais Gurshumov – a senior who is taking a college course in Holocaust Studies through the CUNY College Now program – gave a short presentation on the importance of remembering the atrocities that transpired during those grave years of Jewish history. Mais presented a photo slide show of images that speak of the unimaginable tragedies that occurred to the Jewish people over the course of World War II and urged students to reflect on what it would be like, what it would feel like to experience such gruesome events first hand.
Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz came by on this last day of sessions before the Passover vacation for a brief prepassover visit. He spoke about the importance of transmitting our nation’s experiences such as the story of the exodus and the memories of the Holocaust to the future generations. He also invited students to take part in the political process.
Last year’s competition was a smashing success with dozens of students from the tri-state vying for the coveted iPad. With the recent release of iPad 3, this year’s competition is sure to be fierce.
You can solve math and logic problems, right? Then go ahead and join other students from near and a little less near in this math and logic competition event.
A great Purim party this year. The decor, the music, the food, the crowd were all a big hit!
The set up crew really did an excellent job of decorating the place. Took a long time but turned out great. Big thanks to Danny Yakutilov, Gary Levin, Sam Masharsky, Yossi Isseroff, Leon Banil, Meir Kryzhanovsky, Danny Gavrielov, David Koyenov and Isaac Ashurov.
The party atmosphere was perfect. The decor, the lights (thanks to Danny Gavrielov for bringing the laser) and the music all worked together just right.
Josh was introduced to Google’s SketchUp program only recently, but he instantly fell in love with it. His progress has been swift, and with each and every model the complexity and detail as well as precision have been improving. Here is a sampling of Josh’s development.
His first model was this city bus:
Inside view:
Then came the house:
The rooftop deck; pool and hot tub in the yard:
View of the kitchen:
Then Josh tried something bigger:
View of the bridge:
View of the airport:
This is the latest addition – a hotel / resort area. This one has tons of detail that can’t really be shown in a regular image. It’s also made to scale and very precise.
Another marking period, another winner. This time the winner of the coveted iPad 2 was Jacob Khovov, 9th grade. Jacob – an avid reader, put in the most effort on increasing his odds of winning the raffle. There are many ways to get tickets for the Sinai’s Extra-Credit iPad Raffle but it is the EXTRA effort that gets the student the tickets. Hopefully, they will learn an important lesson in life: only those that go the extra mile get the reward.
David Storobin – a contender for the State Senate seat vacated by the disgraced former senator Carl Kruger – spoke before an assembly of Sinai Academy students on Friday February 17th. He spoke about how he, when still a high school student, got involved in politics during the early days of Giuliani’s run for Mayor. David relayed the impression that his volunteerism had left upon him: yes, an individual can and does make a difference! He encouraged the students to get involved in their communities, their neighborhoods.
David also discussed some of his key issues – jobs, economy, education. “When adults are struggling to find work” – he said – “teenagers have a much more difficult time at it, as many of the standard student jobs are being filled by grown ups”. He promised to create a palpable job creation initiative if he is elected.
Mr. Storobin was invited to pick the winning ticket for the the Third Marking Period Extra Credit iPad Raffle. The winner of the iPad 2 for the latest marking period was Jacob Khovov.
He also played a game of Ping Pong with Rabbi Katzin.
On Friday, Moshe Berman – a college student and also a partner with Microsoft’s DreamSpark initiative, visited the school to share with students the beyond-gaming capabilities of Microsoft’s Kinect as well as other Microsoft open source programs.
