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Talmidim from across the tri-state area, the country, and the world, call the MTA dorm home during the school year and enjoy the warmth of the yeshivah’s dorm community. From Shabbatons to Sunday afternoon trips, weekly family-style dinners, and inspiring shiurim and chaburos, there is a variety of meaningful programming for dorm talmidim.

This past week was an extremely productive week for Ezra Academy’s Extra Curricular. The week started off when Ezra sent a team of four students to participate for the school’s very first time in NCSY’s JUMP competition. JUMP (Jewish Unity Mentoring Program) is a high school competition where teams from all over North America come together and try to help solve or at least address important issues affecting their communities.

Every Thursday night, after a long, rigorous week with 12-hour days, bochurim in Mesivta Chofetz Chaim dedicate an additional hour of their time to learn.  From 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., talmidim can either attend a highly interactive, “hocking” shiur in Ketzos Hachoshen given by a rotation of Rebbeim including Rabbi Uri Becker, Rabbi Shlomo Lehrer, and world-renowned Rabbi Daniel Glatstein, or they can learn b’chavrusa for an hour. The program, started many years ago by Rabbi Yaakov Kier, has recently reached a record high attendance.

BYQ’s first graders discovered how delicious learning can be! The girls are learning about the lifecycles of different plants. The year’s study began with the apple’s cycle for Rosh HaShanah. For the fall, they focused on pumpkins. The teachers read a book about pumpkins to introduce the life cycle of pumpkins. The first grade classes began with two essential learning questions. First, what is a pumpkin? Their next question was: “What is inside of a pumpkin?” Interestingly, many girls predicted pumpkins would have one big pit like an avocado. Surprise! Pumpkins actually have many seeds! Once the teachers opened up the pumpkin, the girls had a third question: How many seeds are inside?

On Motza’ei Shabbos, November 16, the Yeshiva of Central Queens third grade students had their annual m’laveh malkah. The students worked for weeks with their moros and their music teacher, Morah Tali Spector. The students then performed the songs they learned in front of their parents, grandparents, and teachers. The songs were meaningful, especially since the students worked so hard learning and practicing their songs. “The m’laveh malkah was fun. I liked singing Eliyahu HaNavi the best,” said Shimon Borukhov, grade three. The production put smiles on everyone’s faces. The students sang about Shabbos and had a great time performing. Ava Sternfield, grade three, said, “The m’laveh malkah was awesome because I got to perform in front of my family with all of my friends.”