Welcome to 4th Grade!

Dear Fourth Grade Families,

Welcome back to another year at Hannah Senesh Community Day School! Your teaching team is hard at work getting our spaces and selves ready to welcome students on September 3rd, and we are so excited to meet (and re-meet) them. This year, the fourth grade team includes both new and returning teachers and specialists that your child will meet in the first few weeks of school.

Dawn Wheatley, General Studies, returns to Hannah Senesh in a new role after teaching Kindergarten here for the second half of last year. Previous to that she has worked as a classroom teacher, math specialist, and administrator, most recently at the Bank Street School for Children and the LIttle Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School. Dawn is excited to work with this new group which includes four siblings from last year’s Kindergarten class.

Rimma Berenshtein, previous Senesh Hebrew teacher, returns to the community as third and fourth grade Hebrew teacher. Rimma comes with more than 20 years of  teaching experience in the United States and abroad. She is very excited to be back and looking forward to meeting her new students.

Ariana Mizrahi will be teaching third and fourth grade Judaic Studies. Ariana comes to Senesh following 16 years’ experience teaching in Jewish Day Schools and experience as director of a Jewish camp and Sunday Hebrew school. Ariana has training and experience in teaching  Hebrew language, Judaic text, and Jewish history. She looks forward to exploring Jewish texts and traditions with her students. 

Tomer Yanay will again be teaching Hebrew Heritage. In his third year at Hannah Senesh, Tomer is looking forward to including movement in his curriculum. 

We are all eager to get started! Our email addresses are listed below:

Dawn Wheatley: dwheatley@hannahsenesh.org

Ariana Mizrahi:  amizrahi@hannahsenesh.org

Rimma Berenshtein: rberenshtein@hannahsenesh.org

Tomer Yanay: tyanay@hannahsenesh.org

Dismissal Procedures:  The classroom teachers are responsible for the dismissal of your children and will be maintaining the bus and dismissal lists for your child’s class. Please send all communication regarding dismissal, bus and pickup, directly to Dawn Wheatley the day before. For last minute and urgent changes, please send communication by 12:00 pm on the day of in order to receive a confirmation email from the teachers. Teachers will be checking email at this time and creating the day’s final dismissal list. **We appreciate your mindfulness, as teachers are working with the children in the afternoon and are unable to check for emails.** Thank you for your help and partnership.

Birthdays: Birthday celebrations in fourth grade consists of two parts. First, each child is invited to wear the infamous fourth grade “birthday cape” around school on the day of their birthday. This has become a recognized symbol around the school for staff and students to wish them a happy birthday! We end the day with a short (10 minute) celebration where parents and siblings are invited to join the class and bring a store bought, Kosher treat.  As your child’s birthday mont) approaches, we will reach out to you to coordinate you coming in.

Helpful Tip: Please send your child to school with a sweater. Our powerful air conditioning system can make for a chilly classroom!

Thank you and we are looking forward to seeing you all at Back to School Night on September 16!

Best Wishes,

The Fourth Grade Team