In Every Generation: A PJ Library Family Haggadah can be downloaded from pjlibrary.org/passover. (photo from PJ Library)
Passover is the ultimate Jewish story – a tale of freedom, hope and food – which makes it the perfect holiday to share with the entire family. Passover is time for gathering, reflecting, telling stories and working towards a world with freedom for all. But planning to cover all that with kids may feel lofty – especially if you’re a little hazy on the details yourself. The free Jewish book program PJ Library has you covered as a go-to destination for making Passover special.
Visit PJ Library’s Passover Hub at pjlibrary.org/passover to find everything you need to plan your Passover seder, set your table and answer your kids’ questions. There, you’ll find PJ Library’s free downloadable Passover Guide, a family-oriented primer that lays out how to prepare for the seders and the foods you need for your table, as well as offering up meaningful activities to make the most out of all eight days. The guide covers three main sections: how to get ready, what you need to get through the seder, and what comes after the festive meals have come to a close.
Also available for digital download from the hub is In Every Generation: A PJ Library Family Haggadah. It follows the arc of a traditional Haggadah and features all the major songs, prayers and moments, but also incorporates helpful framing and stories for kids so they can get the most out of this experiential meal. It also has new question prompts to help you reinvigorate your seder. The online version can be downloaded for free, while the PJ Library Haggadah is available for purchase in paperback from Amazon.ca.
Beyond the guide and the Haggadah, the Passover Hub features downloadable activities to keep little ones entertained during the seder, book lists, a step-by-step video playlist to help kids learn (or brush up on) the Four Questions, and recipes. There are fun and easy recipes like Charoset Breakfast Balls, a perfect grab-and-go breakfast that’s healthy and packed with protein, Chicken Skewers with Avocado Dip, or cholent, a classic hearty Jewish dish made in the slow cooker.
About PJ Library
PJ Library’s goal is to inspire joyful Jewish experiences by sending free storybooks and activities to families with children ages 0-12 and offering ways to connect with community. The program was founded in 2005 by the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and, with the support of donors and partners, now distributes books in seven languages to more than 650,000 children in more than 40 countries every month. The PJ Library family experience is built around the monthly storybooks and also includes family-focused holiday guides and other free gifts. Anyone who visits PJ Library’s website can hear original storytelling podcasts and explore a vast collection of Jewish parenting resources. The program welcomes families across the diversity of Jewish life. Learn more or sign up for monthly children’s books at pjlibrary.org.
Over the years, Toronto-based educator Lisa Gelberman saw a consistent problem with the education system: it did not address the fact that a third of students in North America have various reading difficulties.
“When kids struggle academically, they struggle behaviourally, they struggle socially, and long-term success becomes more unlikely. It’s a huge spiral,” said Gelberman, principal at Kayla’s Children Centre (KCC).
In her view, the need was so great to help those falling through the literacy cracks, that she took matters into her own hands to find a way to solve the problem. Over time, she developed an online reading program called Literacy Decoded, which launched in 2022. Its aim is to train teachers to support students with learning disabilities, dyslexia and other developmental delays. Several Toronto Jewish schools (including Bais Yaakov High School and Eitz Chaim Schools) have purchased the course and adopted its curricula. She has sold it to hundreds of educators across North America.
Comprising mostly Jewish students, KCC is a school, therapy clinic, recreational centre and camp for children with special needs, and some students, including those who have extreme delays, have learned to read because of the program.
“The Jewish community sees the importance of supporting children with learning disabilities and dyslexia,” Gelberman said. “There are going to be fewer kids leaving the Jewish school systems for secular schools, because now their own schools have the training and resources needed. Now their needs are being met and [the program is] changing their educational outcome,” she contends.
The mother of five began her career as a teacher at a public school, teaching first grade for three years, then, having taken various course qualifications, she began teaching special education. Later, she led a class for students with learning disabilities, dyslexia or severe ADHD. Afterwards, she taught children with autism.
“I was always very passionate about teaching children to read,” she said. “Developing curricula and exploring different paths to teaching kids to read is my purpose.”
Up until about five years ago, Gelberman said, most schools across North America used a methodology called the “whole language approach.” But a full third of children do not pick up reading from this method, she argues. “So, kids struggle, and I just knew there’s something I had to do about it.
“Every year,” she continued, “I got so close to teaching this one child to read [but] he came back after the summer and it was like everything I taught him was lost. I didn’t understand why. That’s when I started to look for other programs to help.”
She discovered the Orton-Gillingham approach, and, on her own dime and with a year-and-a-half of study, she became certified to teach it.
After being hired by Kayla’s, Gelberman applied the Orton-Gillingham methods with the institution’s kids and found success in teaching children who previously had found it incredibly difficult to read.
Building upon the program, she videoed her own son, who showed signs of dyslexia and was having trouble reading, learning with the approach and used it to show teachers and parents how to implement it.
“He’s jumped three grade levels in six months. And even his teacher at the time couldn’t believe it,” she said.
“And that’s how I actually was able to improve upon the program…. I was training the teachers, and other schools were asking me to come in [to do] staff training, but I simply didn’t have the time. So, I decided to develop a course of my own.”
Lisa Gelberman has created an online teaching program, Literacy Decoded, based on the Orton-Gillingham method. (image from Lisa Gelberman)
It was important for Gelberman to gear her own program towards Jewish day schools, which she claims have fewer resources, in general, to divert to kids who are lagging. Particularly for the Jewish community, she’s made a special effort to ensure the content – words and images – is appropriate.
According to Gelberman, the two years of remote learning during COVID made the program more relevant and needed, given how so many children who require in-person interaction to absorb materials were denied this interaction during a critical time in their learning.
“I’m just so happy that the children who would have fallen through the cracks are now able to read,” she said, adding that KCC children are being mainstreamed, when they ordinarily would not be.
Four years in development, “huge pieces” of Gelberman’s program do not involve memorizing words, nor looking at pictures, tools she said have been relied upon heavily as teaching aids. Instead, in her course, what seems to work is the sounding out of words, learning different sound combinations, and learning syllable types.
The program is asynchronous, that is, it proceeds at the teacher’s pace, and each lesson is through video, so the lessons feel “live.” In addition, Gelberman offers monthly coaching sessions with teachers, where they share with each other their struggles and problem-solving methods.
“I truly feel the right training from the right teachers can and will teach kids to read,” she said.
Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in more than 100 publications around the world. His website is davegordonwrites.com.
Students in Uganda at work in a BrightBox, a solar-powered classroom. (photo from Simbi Foundation)
This year’s graduating class at Vancouver Talmud Torah made a significant impact to the lives of thousands of refugees in the Bidibidi refugee settlement in Uganda. Their connection to the refugees on the African continent is a story that goes back to two young Jewish men who grew up in Vancouver and are determined to enhance education and create lifelong change in the lives of displaced people.
As co-founders of the Simbi Foundation, Ran Sommer and Aaron Friedland have established a template for BrightBoxes, which are sustainable solar-powered classrooms that are shipped to refugee settlements in Uganda and other countries. Each box costs $55,000 Cdn and includes a shipping container with solar panels, laptops, projectors and digital aids, as well as all the installation costs at its destination.
The foundation has installed five BrightBoxes in the Bidibidi settlement, where 240,000 refugees reside, and one in the Palorinya settlement, where there are 170,000 refugees. Each week, a BrightBox serves 6,000 learners.
“We’re able to reach that many learners because we connect the solar energy from the BrightBox to other classrooms in the area. They all become connected by the electricity and wi-fi generated by the BrightBox, which means the entire school population is connected simultaneously. The power of this 40-foot shipping container is its ability to connect the surrounding school blocks,” Sommer explained.
Back at VTT, the school established the Grade 7 Mitzvah of Valuing Philanthropy program in 2008. Each year, the graduating class chooses charities or causes that are meaningful to the group and fundraises to support those causes. This year, the school decided to fundraise exclusively for the Simbi Foundation.
“After learning about the power of a BrightBox to dramatically transform lives in the Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda, we decided to go bold and big by dedicating all money raised to this one cause only,” said Jennifer Shecter, director of communications and admissions at VTT. “We wanted to make a giant impact this one time.”
The Grade 7 class dedicates several months of study and exploration to the MVP program and Shecter said the students become emotionally invested and feel genuine pride in their fundraising efforts. “In years past, students ran bake sales, garage sales, babysitting services, movie screenings at VTT and other initiatives to boost their MVP contributions,” she said. “This year, all those options were not available due to COVID so several of our students passionately worked the phones (or texted) family members and friends to donate.”
Several students contributed in excess of $1,000 each to the program, with the average donation ranging between $180 and $250 per student. A total of $38,000 was raised.
Shecter said the students’ connection to Friedland and Sommer, and their understanding of the scope of this project, enabled them to convince others to jump on board and donate to the cause.
The two co-founders spent time in the classroom with the Grade 7 students, explaining the purpose of the BrightBoxes and the extent of the research that motivates the Simbi Foundation’s decisions. The students were assigned to groups to study solar energy, the BrightBox curriculum and other topics relevant to education in the refugee settlements.
“We had two elements happening in parallel: the students were learning about our program and fundraising for it,” said Sommer. “So, they knew exactly what their fundraising efforts were contributing to. Because of that, they were able to surpass their fundraising goal. We were extremely impressed and honoured with VTT and the students’ efforts.”
Shecter added that VTT has had a relationship with Friedland for the past five years.
“VTT students meet with Aaron every year to learn about new initiatives and participate in his programs, like the Simbi reading and literacy program, and they find Aaron and Ran to be enthusiastic, approachable and relatable,” she said. “Our students thoroughly enjoyed each interaction with them and felt a sense of pride knowing members of their community are creating avenues for real change for individuals with many barriers to education and prosperity.”
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
Sifriya Pijama has created approximately 100 books in Hebrew and Arabic. (photo by David Salem)
Keren Grinspoon Israel promotes literacy through the gift of books to young children in Israel. Last fall, KGI was chosen by the U.S. Library of Congress as a Literacy Awards Program Best Practice Honoree, “in recognition of the organization’s long-standing achievement in promoting literacy and the development of innovative methods and effective practices in the field.” This past December, KGI’s founding director, Galina Vromen, retired, and the organization welcomed Andrea Arbel to its helm.
Keren Grinspoon Israel’s new executive director, Andrea Arbel. (photo by David Salem)
The Harold Grinspoon Foundation started PJ Library in 2005 in the United States. According to its website, the program now sends “free books to more than 230,000 subscribers throughout the United States and Canada” and “is an expanding global community linked by shared stories and values that spans across five continents and more than 670,000 subscribers.”
The program reached Israel in 2008, when the foundation’s director of special projects, Vromen, moved back to Israel. She said Harold Grinspoon jumped at the opportunity to extend the program. “He basically said, ‘OK … if you’re going back to Israel, see if you can start PJ Library there,’” Vromen told the Independent. “We were giving away about a million and a half dollars’ worth of grants each year there. He said, ‘I don’t think I need a full-time person to watch over those grants in Israel … so I can assure you full-time employment for six months.’” The job lasted much longer than that, of course.
According to Vromen, the PJ Library book delivery system needed to be different in Israel, as mailboxes there are too small for books. But, on the plus side, unlike in North America, where Jewish populations are spread out, in Israel, you can reach practically every Jewish kid through the public school system.
In 2009, a pilot program was launched with Israel’s Ministry of Education, starting with 3,500 children in the Gilboa region.
“People knew me [in that area] and I came to them and said that we wanted to do a book program,” explained Vromen. “They asked, ‘What books?’ And we answered that we didn’t know yet. So, they basically said, ‘Well, if Grinspoon says he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it.’ And they gave me a lot of support.”
After the first year, the numbers increased to 40,000 children, with funding being split between the foundation and the ministry. The program – called Sifriya Pijama – continued to expand and, eventually, in 2014, the foundation started a program in Arabic.
“Harold Grinspoon, when he started PJ Library, he was inspired by Dolly Parton – a program called Imagination Library, which was really one that served inner-city families, gifting books,” said Vromen.
In Israel, Sifriya Pijama gives kids a shared experience, as they start learning to read.
“Whether it’s a religious or secular school, they get the same books, with the same parent suggestions, for teachers to implement the program within the classroom and, so, it has become quite a bridge-builder,” said Vromen. “I think that children coming from religious homes and those from secular or non-religious homes in Israel don’t normally read the same books or authors. It’s not like in America, where everyone grows up reading Dr. Seuss.
“So, in that way, we’ve managed to make it so that kids now, across the board, are really experiencing the same kind of books. And, with the Arabic program, one could say … What’s a Jewish foundation group dedicated to Jewish education doing running a book program with the Ministry of Education in Arabic? But, the truth of the matter is that, for Israel’s Arab minority, language is an issue.”
Spoken and written Arabic differ. Formal Arabic, which is found in books, unifies Arabs around the world, and the books for kids in formal Arabic begin to build language skills, said Vromen. Just like Sifriya Pijama, Maktabat al-Fanoos is a program about identity, she said.
Many PJ Library books in North America focus on Jewish holidays and Jewish values. The books in Israel focus less on holidays and more on values, like hospitality, taking care of the sick, and honouring your parents.
“We have a book about a bear that is sick and someone takes care of him, and then they all get sick and he takes care of them,” said Vromen. “That’s a perfectly good story for the programs. Another good example is a story we have about a mother koala bear who is very, very busy, but the little koala bear wants to play with her all the time … and the little koala bear learns to do things by himself, eventually deciding to make mud pies, and they come together at the end. It’s a cute little story and a way of discussing an important issue that, when you’re 4 years old is a big concept … giving mom a little bit of mom time and you needing to play by yourself for now … explaining values to a child in a child’s world.
“What’s really important is choosing books that open up a conversation,” said Vromen. “This is a book you can have a conversation about between parents and children. Basically, we’re trying to create opportunities for parents and children.”
Since the program in Israel is school-based, however, the education process starts with the teacher introducing the book to their class, reading it aloud a couple of times. Often, there is an activity included. Then, eventually, the kids take the book home.
“Each child takes home a copy and they keep it,” said Vromen. “There are eight books per year, per child, for three years in preschool. There are four books in first grade and in second grade. And so, by the time the child goes into third grade, they already will have received 32 books from us over the years.”
While most schools are either Jewish or Arab, a small minority are mixed. In mixed schools, the program starts by delivering four Hebrew books in the first half of the year, then four Arabic books in the second half of the year.
So far, the program has created approximately 100 books in Hebrew and Arabic, with nearly 30 of them being translated into English and other languages.
COVID-19 posed a challenge in Israel when schools were closed, but the younger kids were the first to be sent back to school, so the program has more or less caught up on the missed books and is now running as normal.
“For the Arab program, about 90% of the books they receive are the only children’s books they have in their home. In Hebrew-speaking families, it’s about 47%,” said Vromen. “We’re the largest book-giving program in Arabic in the world.”
The program reaches about “70% of Hebrew-speaking children,” she added. “So, we’re talking about 80% of children in public schools in Israel – that’s quite extraordinary.”
Late last year, Vromen retired and, on Dec. 1, Andrea Arbel stepped in to lead KGI, after having worked for 18 years at the Jewish Agency.
“I relate to PJ Library on several spheres – as a published author who believes in the positive power of the written word on children; as someone who cares about strengthening Jewish culture in Israel and overseas Jewish communities; and as a mother of three who understands the critical importance of nurturing young minds and how much these efforts put children on a successful trajectory,” said Arbel.
Together with KGI’s leading partners and other supporters, Arbel is hoping to expand Sifriya Pijama and Maktabat al-Fanoos in both scope and depth, and to widen their sphere of influence on the broader community in new ways. For more information, visit hgf.org.
Florencia Katz and family. (photo from Florencia Katz)
PJ Library, which provides Jewish children with free Jewish-themed books and CDs, has expanded its program and now serves readers up to 11 years old.
Available in Jewish communities across North America, PJ Library is supported by local Jewish federations and many other donors. In Winnipeg, the program is in its 10th year, and Florencia Katz has been coordinating it since 2011. As a mom of two, she has experienced firsthand the impact the books have on her kids.
Eventually, Katz’s children aged out of the PJ Library program, which is for kids ages 6 months to 8 years old. But now, with the new program, PJ Our Way, Katz’s younger child, Tali, can once again enjoy the perks of PJ.
“PJ Our Way is the next chapter of PJ Library, for kids ages 9 to 11,” explained Katz. “Kids throughout the United States and Canada are eligible to enrol in the program from the day they turn eight-and-a-half until the day before their 12th birthday.
“The Harold Grinspoon Foundation, with the generous support of PJ Alliance Partners, provides PJ Our Way subscriptions at no cost to families or partner communities.”
PJ Our Way is considered the next chapter of PJ Library because it follows the same goals of the original program: engaging families and children in Jewish values, content and, ultimately, community.
PJ Our Way offers tweens the possibility of engaging online – allowing them to choose their own book, write book reviews, blog and more.
“My children and family have enjoyed the PJ Library program for years and, as avid readers, my kids were quite sad to stop receiving books at home once they aged out from PJ Library,” said Katz.
“My daughter, Tali, currently 10-and-a-half, was over the moon when I told her that she can now sign up to PJ Our Way. On the morning of the launch of PJ Our Way in Canada, before going to school, we signed up as one of the first sign-ups in Winnipeg, and maybe all Canada.
“As a parent, I am excited that, through this amazing program, my daughter will have the opportunity to keep reading quality Jewish-themed literature. The possibility that this program offers to engage online to choose the book, watch and read reviews, and submit their own reviews makes [it] attractive and exciting for this demographic.”
Tali was excited to pick her first book and spent some time on the PJ Our Way website, reading reviews and the synopses of all the available books, before choosing.
After narrowing her choice down to two books, she asked her mom for help deciding which to pick. After reading each book summary herself, Katz went to the parent section of the site to read more about the Jewish concepts and values and about the positive role models featured in each book. This helped her suggest which book her daughter might enjoy the most.
“Besides the synopsis and the concepts and values section provided for parents, there is also a section called Talk it Over, which suggests a question to discuss with your child after reading the book,” said Katz.
“I will definitely check all the information out and make a point of including it into our conversation about the book if it comes up. I will also suggest to my child to write a review of the book after she is done, so other kids can read it, the same as she read reviews when she picked the book. I want this experience to be enjoyable and fun, so I will not put any pressure or make it feel like a school task.”
Katz said the more Tali reads and learns about Jewish culture and tradition, the better equipped she will be to make her own decisions on how to live her Judaism when she grows up.
Candice Tenenbein, another parent who is part of the Winnipeg PJ Library initiative, is also very excited to have her older son, Jacob, 9, be part of PJ Our Way.
“Every month, our boys eagerly await their newest PJ Library arrivals,” said Tenenbein. “Both of our boys are avid readers. Recently, we were becoming sad that our older son, Jacob, was graduating out of this program. When we heard from Katz that PJ Our Way is now available in Winnipeg, we immediately signed up! We love that the books are exciting and fun to read, and that they all have a Jewish connection.
Candice Tenenbein and family. (photo from Candice Tenenbein)
“In our home, we celebrate Shabbat and all the Jewish holidays. These books and the online portion will add more layers to raising our children to be more knowledgeable about, and proud of, their Jewish heritage.”
Tenenbein is also looking forward to her sons spending time on their iPads in a more educational and productive manner, instead of just watching videos. PJ Our Way offers a safe and protected online environment.
At the Tenenbein house, all family members read the books provided by PJ Library, as they love to discuss their favourite parts of each one and share their thoughts of how the books impacted them.
“Jacob is especially excited that his friends will also be joining PJ Our Way,” said Tenenbein. “The kids are planning to choose the same books each month, so they can have their own book club.
“Growing up, my mother, may she rest in peace, instilled in us a love of reading and a pride in our Jewish heritage. Now, as a mother myself, I understand how truly important opportunities are which provide for our kids to understand what the religion means to them and their daily lives.
“This is especially important in today’s environment, where antisemitism and its newer anti-Israel BDS face are becoming more prevalent. My husband and I are grateful for the excellent education our children receive at Gray Academy [in Winnipeg]. PJ Library and PJ Our Way are excellent supplements for helping foster and strengthen these feelings in our children.”
Jacob is also excited about going online and becoming part of a larger community of Jewish peers. He is looking forward to being able to share his thoughts about each book and read what others have to say.
“He cannot wait to begin blogging once he reads his latest PJ Our Way book!” said Tenenbein.
These days, getting paper mail is not common, so PJ kids receiving a free gift in the mail, addressed just to them, is a unique and individual part of the experience. The online aspect then allows them to connect with other Jewish kids who are reading the same books as them. For more information, visit pjourway.org.
Prof. Dorit Aram noticed that young children, prior to going to school, long to write. (photo from Dorit Aram)
According to a recent research from Israel, learning to recite the alef bet alone does little to help children advance their literacy – children should be learning to write, and before they even enter the school system.
The team’s lead researcher, Prof. Dorit Aram, maintains that longstanding misconceptions are getting in the way of children’s abilities.
Aram teaches at Tel Aviv University’s Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education specializing in adult/child early interactions and their relationship to children’s early literacy and social-emotional adjustment. The research was conducted in collaboration with colleagues at American universities and was published last year in Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
“My research started with children that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds,” said Aram. “What we see is that there are gaps between children in terms of their reading and writing achievements.”
As reading and writing are key to children’s academic success, Aram “was interested in how parents could promote their children’s literacy, in particular those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.” This particular study, however, looked at a group of ethnically diverse, middle-income preschoolers.
Aram began studying literacy with one of the leading early literacy researchers in the world, the late Dr. Iris Levin, working with her, examining children’s early writing development. Levin was a developmental psychologist at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. She passed away in 2013.
“People are so busy with reading,” said Aram, “but considering young children, in particular, I felt writing was even more fascinating than reading, because it’s more active in its communication.”
Aram noticed that young children, prior to going to school, long to write. She recalled a child asking his father how to write a word, in one case. The child’s father gave him the letters, and Aram was left to wonder, “Did the father know he was really mediating, ‘scaffolding,’ his child’s early literacy?”
Aram began studying such interactions to determine ways in which a parent can “scaffold” his/her child’s understanding of the writing system, help them segment a word into its sounds, connect the sounds with the letters, and understand how to build words.
“I saw in my research that the more the parents help the child understand that written language is really symbolizing the spoken words, and that … when the parents really encourage the children to segment the word into its sounds and then retrieve the letters, the more the parents did it (this is what we call the graphophonemic mediation) … the children were doing better,” said Aram.
Working with children in preschools, Aram discovered that teachers were reluctant to work with kids on their writing literacy. “In the beginning, it was difficult for them because they connect writing to school and felt like they were taking away from the kids’ childhood,” she explained. “They’d say, ‘Well, these kids will have so much writing in school. Why do we have to bother them with writing now?’”
According to Aram, the teachers were not considering the possibility that the kids might want to be able to write out the names of their friends, their telephone number, or how they feel.
“Then they saw it’s not against the preschool spirit, that it can fit very well with it,” she said. “And because they were practising letters and phonological awareness, these things were part of their early literacy curriculum anyway.
“The teachers were unaware that you can combine it and have kids write. And, the writing makes the children happy, because they’re doing something meaningful – allowing them to do more than just practise letters, allowing them to really communicate.”
Aram and her team worked with children as young as 3.5-years-old on writing and letter knowledge, graphophonemic understanding, and early writing – not with a pencil, but with magnetic letters or stickers, for example.
“We saw that it worked beautifully,” said Aram. “These children did very well at the end of our intervention year, and it even predicted their achievements and the pace of their development the year after.”
According to Aram, the key is helping the child segment the different letters and the sounds they make. In her research, Aram has found that kids who were taught to connect a letter with the sound the letter makes progressed more than the other groups.
“What amazed us was that the children who received feedback – like so many children of American parents do – by just giving the children the names of the letters, it didn’t help the kids. It was just as good as saying to the kids, ‘Write this word again,’ without any feedback.”
The technique is more challenging to teach in English than in Hebrew, said Aram. However, she added, “From the studies done in English, we found it is still very useful to segment the word into sounds and connect sounds with their letters. Also, to motivate children to write and to respect their writing, even if it’s not 100 percent.”
About English, she explained, “If you think about Italian or other Romance languages, English took all the ‘difficulties,’ and it’s so difficult to see the connection between sounds and letters.”
But that shouldn’t stop parents and teachers from introducing writing into the kids’ daily lives. “For example, if you want, you can send emails, you can [help them] send a ‘Hi Daddy, I love you’ note … or you can write what you want to eat tomorrow, just little things – a word here, a word there.”
Aram noticed, on her visits to North America, that many homes in the United States and Canada have magnetic letters on their fridges. She suggested, “Instead of just naming the letters, write [a] word and do things that are meaningful. Letters, by themselves, are less meaningful. But writing is for communication and writing is meaningful…. It doesn’t have to mean you do a lot of writing, just two words here or there, a sentence here or there – that makes a huge difference, and children love it.”
With kids off school and parents home from work, the winter holidays are perfect for creating family time to play and learn together. ABC Life Literacy Canada offers these holiday family literacy tips to warm your heart and feed your mind!
Family book snuggle: Gather the family together with a favorite holiday or winter book. Get cozy blankets and comfy chairs, then snuggle in and take turns reading aloud to one another.
Make your own cards and gift tags: Even young children can write or draw on a card to send to friends and family or on a gift tag for someone special.
Bake-off: Get the whole family involved in baking! Following a recipe is a great way to practise reading and comprehension skills. Measuring ingredients and following baking times are practical (and delicious) applications of math skills.
Out and about: Take in a holiday show or visit a museum. Family outings offer fun learning opportunities – and make sure to read the theatre program and the exhibit descriptions together.
Make a list: Grocery shopping can be a fun family literacy activity. Your child can write the holiday shopping list, read signs and labels as you make your way through the aisles, and count items as they go into the shopping cart.
Give the gift of literacy: Encourage literacy by giving books, games, drawing materials, magazine subscriptions and bookstore gift cards – gifts to enjoy all year long!
When you include fun learning activities in your family’s holiday time, everyone stays sharp and ready for the New Year. Find more family literacy tips and activities at familyliteracyday.ca.
