Did you know that SOIN recognizes Hebrew?  You could type anything in Hebrew with out a problem on SOIN!

For example, you teach chumash and you need to post the homework. You could post the perek and pasuk in hebrew! All you have to do is go to  control panel, click on language  and select hebrew, thats it! You will then be able to type anything in Hebrew.

I love to use Herew for report cards as . Instead of typing the students name in english  the student/parent gets to see their hebrew name typed in hebrew. Soin also has neat Hebrew report cards. Torah, Tefillah , Navi all written in Hebrew. Reminds me of my Yeshivah days not too long ago…

To summarize you could use Hebrew just about on anything at SOIN. We even communicate with our colleagues in Hebrew on the whiteboard. How cool is that?

SOIN is our school’s online student information system.  The SOIN team has worked with us over the last 5 years. One of the first thing we said we wanted as teachers was the ability to type and communicate in Hebrew with our students.  SOIN made that happen for us a few years ago and ever since we have been typing in Hebrew easily.  It has enabled our Judaic staff especially adapt to the program and feel more a part of the online school community.

Dalia Golbari

As the saying goes a picture is worth a million dollars.Posting your students pictures on line and having the opportunity to share with the parents and your collegues PRICELESS!

At Yavneh Academy we are practicing for 2 very important events. In second grade the chumash play where the children willr eceive their first chumash and begin learning about Avrahams journey to Canaan.

In second grade the first graders will receive their very own siddur. They already know how to read and now after receiving their siddur they could actually see what they have been saying since they started pre-schoo.

The best way to share photos with parents and teachers is by going to photo gallery on Schools on I net. You have 2 options there. One is “my photo gallery” and other one in our case is “Yavneh photo gallery”.

My photo gallery is where one would go to make an album and title it what ever the occasssion may be. So lets say we want to post pictures from the siddur play. I would label the album 1B siddur play and then make a second album for my afternoon class 1C siddur play. After I name my album I add pictures. Its very simple and quick. The best part is that there is No limit to the number of pictures. The sky is the limit. After I add all my pictures I then have the choice to “share” the album with whomever I choose. S ofcoarse my first choice would be the students and their parents. Then I like to share my albums with my fello co workers and administraters.

The best part is gettign all the positive feedback from the people I shared the albums with. Another thing I often do is print the pictures from the albums and make a neat bulletin board. That way evryone is treated to share in our schools smachot.

Shabbat Shalom

Dalia Golbari

Adding grades couldnt be easier. Theres a choice for you to make everyone get the same grade by simply clicking on a box and poof everyone has an A. But if you needed to change a few students to a B then you simply change just that students grade.

You no longer have to worry about counting days student were absent or late. Its all taken care of since we enter it on line evry day the tally is already there.

Printing is my favorite part. I dont need to print each students report card one by one I check each childs name (by using the check box just like the one for the grades) and all the report cards get printed together at the same time.

What a blessing. How lucky we are to have soin on our team!!!

Dalia Golbari

This past weekend we celebrated the beautiful holiday of Sukkot. Everyone was excited to put up their sukkah. This year my sukkah was finally ready just before Shabbat. Every year I ask my husband for a larger, nicer sukkah and every year his answer is next year. He always reminds me of the other necessities we need all year round and that our sukkah is good enough.

What I’m trying to say is we should make the best of everything. For example. My husband built our sukkah. He bought all parts from Home Depot and put it together. Our “canvas” is blue tarp… yes from Home Depot. Every year we decorate our sukkah and make the best of it.  The children this year were in complete charge of decorations ( I was busy cooking).

Friday night arrived and we were about to enter the sukkah. We began by first welcoming our guests the “ushpizin”. (I put in an extra chair in our sukkah for our holy guests).  As we were sitting down in our sukkah I started to look around. I noticed the posters the children hung on the poles. The beautiful lights and flowers were also nicely hanging I became embarrassed by my behavior to my husband. I realized that I have the most beautiful sukkah in my neighborhood. Not because it was made in Home Depot but because it was made by love and special care by everyone in my family. Today I made the brachah over the lulov and etrog with my youngest child and that was truly the most beautiful part of all!

I would like to conclude by wishing everyone a “G’MAr Ve’ Chatimah Tovah”.

Till next week…

Dalia Golbari

This Thursday our third grade students will participate in a Sephardic Rosh Hashanah Seder. This the first time ever at Yavneh Academy!

Being a Persian Jew I am really excited to share my minhagim (traditions) with my students. Tomorrow I will go to the fruit and vegetable market to purchase different items. For example: pomegranate, zuccinni, chives,dates and of coarse apples. We will also have red kidney beans that I will purchase in a can.The children will also recite the proper Yehi Razons before they eat anything and learn why the brachah goes with that specific food item. For example for the pomegranate we are hoping to have done as much mitvot (good deeds) as the seeds in a pomegranate. The only thing missing from our seder is tongue (to be the head and not the tail).

This will be a very exciting day at Yavneh Academy not only for the students but my fellow faculty members who are looking forward to learning what the persians old traditions are to this very joyous time of the year. I want to wish everyone a very healthy and happy new year!

PS I will post the pictures from the special day soon! Keep checking for them

Dalia Golbari

This year at Yavneh Academy teachers in the lower school are required to take attendance using Schools on Net. In the past everyday we were required to write down on paper each child’s name  who was absent. A person from the office would pick up the document and then hand it to the nurse. The nurse was responsible to enter into the computer the students names from the entire school who were absent on a given day. There were many steps to this process which caused many problems.The teachers had to also write on the paper which bus the child would have taken home if  he/she was in school.

The problem arrived when a child would come to school late and wouldn’t report to the office to have his/her name removed from the absentee list. Often at  end of the day the teachers who had bus duty would have the wrong list and sometimes children who were assumed absent were really in school. As you could see there was a “balagan”.

Now taking attendance is just 1 click away. Simply you log onto your  account and look for attendance. Automatically it shows 100% attendance which makes it simple for you without needing to click each and every student who is in class. If a child is absent or late you simply click what ever the case may be and that is it! After we do attendance which takes about  a whole minute we then print 2 copies. One for us to have to give to the teacher who is teaching in the afternoon and 1 for the office to have for their records. Its that simple!

Thank you Schools on Net for making it easier for us!

Finally this past Friday we teachers got access to the Staff White Board on our Schools-On-I-Net system. The whole summer teachers were given limited access while the school office setup the academic year…this past Friday we were able to access our full accounts and see the white board.

The reason I’m so excited to get the white board back is because its the best way we as a family within our school communicate with each other in a quick and fun way (only faculty and staff members can use the Staff White Board). Any day you will find a member of the faculty or Administration using the white board to announce a birth of a new child or grandchild…. in return we wish him/her a Mazal Tov!  Often we are invited to a bris or wedding on the white board.  Oh yes, and announcements of future meetings, times and room numbers are also just a click away.

The SOIN white board is our mini network as well…just last year I knew of a girl coming from Israel and who was looking to find work in the US as a nanny.  I put a message on the white board to see if anyone was looking for a nanny from Israel and to let me know.  Only 2 seconds later I received a few responses for my search. The girl came happily knowing she had a  job waiting for her.

We use the staff whiteboard to share websites that are helpful to use in the classroom simply by pasting the web address onto the white board. Last year we shared many holiday sites for great lessons on Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot, Chanukah etc. They were sites that we all,  including the students,  enjoyed.

Today I finally checked the whiteboard and Yes! there were announcements, some fellow teachers have posted sites on getting started in the academic year and tips for using SmartBoards, and some have posted on new babies who were welcomed over the summer. One faculty member had a boy in July and 2 faculty members announced the arrival of new grandchildren. Mazal tov to all!!

Mrs. Golbari, Elementary Teacher