Give me S'More teaching tips!

Smore is an online platform where anyone can create a newsletter, print it or share it on share networks. It can be used for weekly updates, share class news/lessons or remind students and families about upcoming events.

Check out my first class smore!

I created this newsletter so that I could email to teachers and families. Before COVID, my class was working on a presentation where they were going to display roller coasters that they built in small groups. They were also going to present google slides about how roller coasters use force and motion to operate. I figured that this online newsletter would be a great way to get the students involved! They could create these and email them or even print them out and display in the hallways to raise awareness about our presentations!

Check out this example!!

CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE

Interested to learn how to make one for your own classroom?

Follow this quick & Easy tutorial! If you happen to make one feel free to link it below, I'd love to check it out!

Part One:

 Open up your own Smore Account. For students the easiest way to do this would be sign up with their google account, that way all of their information like email and password is just reused. The next step is to begin creating a newsletter! There are SO many templates to choose from.. but you can always start from scratch if you're feeling extra adventurous.

Part Two:

This is the fun part! Editing and customizing your newsletter. When you use a premade template many of the picture boxes, headings and text boxes are already set up for you. This make it easy for you to just put in the information you would like exactly where you want it. There is so much flexibility with the website which means that sometimes its just too much! If there are too many boxes to fill out, feel free to press the remove button at the top right hand corner and Poof! It goes away! Once you add in and take out the things you like and don't like, scroll all the way to the bottom of your newsletter.

Here is where it gets fun!

There are plenty of extras you can add it including videos and music! I added a video of how roller coasters work to the bottom our events flyer. This way our guests will already have some prior knowledge of the science we spent weeks learning about!

Part 3: 

Look at you go! You're almost there!
Look over your whole newsletter, double check spelling, headings, images, etc. Is there anything you would like to add? Do it up! 
When you think it looks just right, play around with the designs and colors on the right hand side. Choose a font that's best appropriate. (I think the handwriting one is great for elementary level students) After that, press done editing on the right hand side. Here you will see the different ways you can share your work!

BONUS BONUS BONUS!
At the top of the website, there is a really cool feature called Educator Hive!
This is where educators can get inspired by pre-made templates created by other teacher. This is a great resource to use when looking for ideas to get started. 


Inclusive
Do you have families who speak another language at home? Or are there students in your classroom who are English Language Learners and may benefit from reading your newsletter in their native language? 
This app has a built in translator: Let me show you how!

After pressing the Publish My Work button! There is a gray button below, that reads Preview my newsletter. At the top right there is a button that says, accessibility. Click that and it will open a dropbox. Here, you can choose any language that best suits your students' needs.