Skip to main content

6 Easy Steps to Awesome Newsletters that Meet CCSS AND Get StudentsInvolved


At this point I believe most classroom teachers, Title I teams, Special Education Teams, etc. have all finally got on board and send home either a weekly newsletter as individuals or as a team.  We know the forms this can take such as email, website, blog, or paper. We know the benefits of such

communication, like more parent participation, less phone calls, and an overall understanding of the roles your class or team or room is fulfilling in the school building as a whole.  I'd like you to consider how you create the newsletter though...is it at 9pm on Sunday night? Is it about last week? The upcoming week? A mixture of both? Here is how I do it, and how I hope you will try to implement newsletters into your school day/writing/ELA block at any age level K-6:

1. Monday- Thursday: experience learning standards that are focused and meaningful, with students as active participants in the lessons through movement, conversation, modeling, manipulative a, and/ or play.  (So, in other words, have at fabulously run and effective classroom that is just delightful!!! Haha:) 

2. When Thursday rolls around, use your projector ( hopefully you have one for the SmartBoard or some other technology in your room!) to display a blank word document or choose a newsletter template together and explain to the class briefly that you'll be creating the newsletter together, everyone gets a sentence, everyone helps!

3. Call on each student one at a time to give you a complete sentence from the week that they learned or enjoyed, or something coming up soon that they are looking forward to.  Type each and every idea, even if they repeat.  EVERYONE contributes in an important way.  Older kiddos can type their sentence into the document themselves, or you can do them all.  

4. Read through your sentences together, model how to cut and paste or otherwise edit the document so it flows into paragraphs that make sense together, or fits into a format that is visually easy to comprehend.  

5. Allow students to give input about font, text size, what to call the newsletter, and/or adding any pictures that are relevant to the content they've created.  

6. Publish, upload, or print your newsletter on Friday Morning.  During this ELA block, allow students to use a highlighter to fin the sentence they contributed to the newsletter, highlight it so it stands out, and then have them buddy read it to each other.  This is a chance for one last revision, then sent it home or out to the web!

I've done this type of newsletter at every grade level, K-6 and it is always fun and meaningful.  The students love being able to talk about what they've learned this week and of course it gives us another form of assessment (oral, formative, authentic) to see what we as teachers hit home runs on that week or might need to revisit because it didn't make a big enough impression to make it into the newsletter!

Have you used this or something similar? Might you try this? What are your thoughts? I'd love to hear from you! 

Until next time, 
Stefanie ~~

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Updated: Reading to Someone in Centers is Important! Make it Productive for the Students with a Structured Activity they can Facilitate for Themselves!

In Elementary teaching, whether in public schools or charter schools at some point during their instructional day have a Language Arts Block that includes small group instruction.  For us teachers, generally that means pulling leveled groups for guided reading or some form of it (reciprocal teaching, close reading, etc.), and for students it means rotating through learning "centers" or "stations" that should reinforce previously learned concepts based on Common Core Standards.  When deciding how to manage these small group and center times, teachers often seek out instructional practices such as "The Daily 5", which includes the following 5 types of learning centers:                                       1. Working with Words 2.  Reading to Yourself 3.  Writing  4. Reading to Someone 5. Listening to Reading Now, whether you use The Daily 5 practice, or ...

3 Ways to Make Sure the Students are Loving Your Reading Block!

3 Ways to Make Sure the Students are Loving Your Reading Block! Hey everyone! I am excited to share with you again, this time some of my most successful Reading Block structures and activities to engage kids and get them interacting with text in ways that make an impact. Keep reading if you want to make some easy to implement changes to your reading instruction that pack a punch of growth!  1. Teach in Their World with a Variety of Text Selection and Media Text choices that our students can be excited about are more available to us now than ever before. Be aware of what the most popular books are on reputable websites such scholastic book clubs, or in the kids book aisle at target. Make an effort to borrow those titles from your local library (oh yeah, ask the librarians too--they'll be able to tell you which titles are checked out most often by kids in each age group!) or create a wish list on amazon for people who want to donate things to your class and put those books at t...