Portland Jewish Academy

Check out this week's Spotlight! 🔵 🤾 😎

Learn how student initiative and leadership brought the gaga pit to PJA.

Leadership for the Gaga Pit Learn how student initiative and leadership brought the gaga pit to PJA.

Move over, Smoky Bear. Our 4th-grade rangers are officially on duty! 🐻✨🌲

This spring, our 4th Graders have been diving deep into the history, wildlife, recreation, and wonder of America's National Parks. Each student chose a specific park to research and crafted their very own "Ranger Talk" stepping into the shoes of a real park ranger.

Family, friends, and fellow students joined us for a wax-museum-style showcase, where our students confidently gave their ranger talks. To close out the amazing afternoon, our newly minted rangers led all of our visitors in a solemn Ranger Pledge. With right hands raised, the room echoed with promises to take care of our parks. "From the tops of the mountains to the bottom of the canyons, we will honor our National Parks."

We are so incredibly proud of our 4th graders' hard work, dedication, and passion for protecting nature!

Science, but make it delicious! 🍪🥒

Our Middle School Science Expo took place last week, and the results were absolutely yummy and full of surprises. Our brilliant Science Club students have been meeting weekly during lunch and recess to design experiments, analyze data, and dive deep into their passions.

While our taste-testing participants had a blast helping out with the alternative flour chocolate chip cookie experiment, the other groups uncovered some unexpected findings. The marshmallow group discovered the younger students had more restraint than the older ones when it came to sweets. Meanwhile, the pickling group learned they definitely wouldn't make lemon juice pickles again, and accidentally created a pink pickle - watch out grocery stores!

A massive congratulations to all of our participants! It was incredibly fun asking questions, hearing your hypotheses, and learning that sometimes the unexpected results are the best part of science. You all cooked up some top-tier, Michelin-star worthy research!

Check out this week's Spotlight! 📖 💭 💪

Learn how PJA students explored new genres and celebrated their literacy milestones with an epic, Olympics-themed Reading Challenge finale.

Reading Olympics PJA students explored new genres and celebrated their literacy milestones with an epic, Olympics-themed Reading Challenge finale.