I know that in the elementary world, it's probably a little bit easier to send home a newsletter every week. However, with 130-140 students at a time, it can be a little difficult. Middle school children often "forget" about important dates or events that go on during school. Enter "Miss Lorenzo's Lowdown":
This is an example of my parent newsletter that I send out every Monday (It was from the second week of school last year!). On my back-to-school handouts, I have my parents indicate if they would like to receive my newsletter via email, and I save their email addresses in groups in my school email account. Then, I would email them my newsletter (bcc, of course - so that they don't know each other's addresses) and let them know what their kids could look forward to that week! It takes a little time at first to input the parent emails into my address book, but once I do it, I don't have to enter email addresses again for the rest of the year AND I don't have to search for parent emails if I need to contact them! I have gotten plenty of complements over their year from parents who are grateful that I take the time to let them know what's going on. The students, however, complain that their parents know so much!! Haha!
I'm thinking of changing the format for this coming year. I really like this layout from Sarah Rubin's post, who was inspired from Jessie Hester at Mrs. Hester's classroom. These two are my main inspiration for doing ISN's this year! They are really the best!
