Barkai Yeshivah Literacy Day

One of Barkai Yeshivah’s central missions is to have their students feel excited and inspired by learning. At their annual Literacy Day event, they did just that. Opening their doors to the community, they transformed nearly every classroom in the school into an action packed learning zone.

In many of the rooms, parents and teachers read books aloud to scores of attentive children. After listening to the stories, the children went on to solidify their reading experiences by translating them into hands on projects. From making fresh donuts to creating their own personal inventions, students had plenty of opportunities to express themselves and play with the tools of creativity. But read-a-louds and projects were only the beginning.

One large room was dedicated to a live animal show where handlers allowed children to touch and learn about creatures from all over. The experts taught children that interacting with animals is a rare and precious opportunity to experience the global environment more conscientiously.

Raising awareness was also the goal of the many workshops open to the older children. Nutrition classes took students on a journey from supermarket to kitchen where they learned to identify healthy foods and create delicious dishes. A music workshop inspired them to use everyday objects as instruments and develop sensitivity to sounds and rhythm. Writing workshops taught them how to create narratives using art and illustration. Dance, baking, science and even EMT workshops all created spectacular learning experiences for each and every child.

All the workshops were run by experts who encouraged the children to dream big and think of what they would like to be when they grow up, which was the central theme of Barkai’s Literacy Day.

Even before the event, students were encouraged to participate in a poetry contest based on the theme, and hundreds of children voluntarily took pen to paper in order to express their future goals and desires.

To top off the day there was a book fair for newly inspired readers, lunch and snacks for all, and a reading hunt that kept even the youngest children running from floor to floor hoping to solve their reading clues.

Did the children attending Barkai’s Literacy Day leave the building inspired? Just ask them if they’d like to go back next year. Their smiles should say it all.