Three years. Twenty-four issues. Three hundred and twenty-four articles. One amazing experience. In the fall of 2020, as a third grader at Manhattan Day School, I launched my own newspaper, inspired by Leah Klein’s book series “B.Y. Times,” about a group of girls that starts its own newspaper.

I asked my best friend, Sofia Rosenfeld, to join the newspaper staff, and she agreed. I set up a shared Google Slide, and we went to work. We wrote articles about Chanukah, interviewed the upper school principal, started a column called “Class Tidbits” and added a game page at the end.

My mother emailed my teachers to check if we could hand it out at school, and they approved our request. Our teachers and classmates loved the paper. We continued working on issue after issue. We added a new column called “The ONLY Third Grade News,” and we began interviewing the Manhattan Day School staff.

The interviews were my favorite part. We talked to Rabbi Eisenberg, our lower school principal, Ms. Chechik, the head of school, and many other teachers and staff. We discovered many interesting things during these interviews—a creative way to learn about people. We asked them questions, such as, “What advice would you give us if we want to be a teacher when we grow up?” and “What three emojis symbolize your life?”

Since our newspaper was a big success in third grade and everyone was very enthusiastic about it, we continued to publish issues in fourth grade. We interviewed our new teachers, Morah Neima and Ms. Sobel. Our staff continued to grow. Sofia moved to Connecticut that summer, so she became our Connecticut correspondent. She wrote updates from Connecticut about her new school.

Every month, we found new topics to explore. My Uncle Menachem is a journalist and kindly agreed to hold several Zoom sessions to give us advice about writing. It was very helpful. And my mother has been such an important part of the newspaper, too. Without her help, it would not exist.

At the end of fourth grade, I invited the whole newspaper staff to my apartment for a big party with pizza, popsicles and dancing. We each shared one thing we liked about the newspaper. Three of the most meaningful things about our newspaper experience was our friendship, teamwork and laughter.

In summer of 2022, my family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey, and I started fifth grade at a new school: Yeshivat Noam. Noam was so kind and welcoming, but I missed doing the newspaper with my old friends at MDS. I decided to start another newspaper, “The Noam Messenger.”

We’ve already published three issues, and are working on our fourth. Working together on a newspaper is a great way to interact with new people at my new school. We’ve featured an advice column, parsha, word searches, teacher interviews and many other types of articles.

I hope to continue putting out newspaper issues for many years to come. And if this article inspires you to create a newspaper, too, I say, “Go for it!”

Beverly Soloveichik is the editor-in-chief of The Noam Messenger at Yeshivat Noam, where she is a fifth grader.