How many of you love making a class newsletter every month or every week? While I know it’s important to showcase what students are doing in the classroom, this was always one more thing I had to do. However, I found a way to take it off of my “To Do” list. Instead of me showcasing the students’ work, I let my students do the talking. How? By making monthly newsletters with a twist!
What’s a Class Newsletter?
A newsletter is a document (digital or print) that you can send out to your students’ parents. On the class newsletter, you would include what is going on in school, if there was a student of the month/week, and what upcoming events parents need to be on the lookout for. Class newsletters are a great way to get your information out to parents without having to spend hours on the phone or writing personal emails. How do you make something so beneficial take way less of your time? By getting student help!
Brainstorm Your Class Newsletter
During the first week of the month, have your students brainstorm all the things they can remember doing the month before. For example, in the first week of February, you would have your students brainstorm what they did in the month of January. Students can talk about the January books they read in class along with their picture pals. If students are struggling to come up with ideas, you can give them different subject areas to think about. You want to brainstorm several different ideas.
Put Your Students to Work
After you have brainstormed all these great ideas for your class newsletter, you want to photocopy double-sided worksheets with the back of the page being fully lined. On one side, have students draw a picture of four events. The four events can be any of the ones they have brainstormed. By letting each student choose four ideas, you are sure to get some variety!
On the lines below the picture, have your students write about the different activities that they drew. In their description, they can talk about what they learned and what they liked about the topic. You can also have them continue writing about more on the back of the paper.
Here’s an example of the first page of a newsletter. The child has drawn the 4 pictures and written about 3 of them. There is an opening sentence and there will be a concluding sentence at the end. This is typical of what I would get from my second-grade class.
Class Newsletter Adaptations for Kindergarten
I know some teachers reading this are thinking, “I can’t give my kindergarteners all this freedom” I have a great solution for you. Instead of brainstorming several ideas, only brainstorm a few for each subject. Then, create sentence frames they can use for their writing. For example, you might give them the following sentence frames:
- In January we….
- I liked it when we…
- Our class learned…
- I learned about…
Adaptations for First and Second Grade Class Newsletters
For first and second-grade students, you might want to be more direct with what they choose. For example, you could tell them for the class newsletter, choose one idea from each subject. Then you can use the sentence frames from above when needed. To push your more advanced students, you can have them elaborate on what they learned.
Class newsletters are a great place for students to showcase their knowledge for their parents. It’s also a great place for you to put any reminders that you need parents to know. When you put the class newsletter into students’ hands, you not only take something off of your plate, you also get to review the information that you covered the month before. Doing this is a great indicator of what students learned and truly retained. Fill in the form to get your own copy of newsletter templates right in your inbox.
