In 1991 my family began putting out a newsletter, The Ruff Draft. We had recently started homeschooling and the purpose of The Ruff Draft was to both give real writing opportunities to Ayanna, Tulani, James and Cabral, and to show the relatives they were learning something. Here are 3 pages from the July 30, 1991 edition. What I noticed while looking through it this morning was how similar the News Shorts on page 3 were to the News Shorts in the papers in the early 1900’s where I have found information of births, weddings and at home celebrations for my grandparents. We stopped publishing when the writers graduated and moved on to bigger things away from home.
What a cute idea, especially for kids learning to do expository writing. I remember putting together several newspapers as a kid, but nothing so fancy! We homeschool, so will keep this idea in mind for when my daughter gets older. 🙂
We did it for 4 or 5 years bi-monthly. We also did Story rounds. All of them turned into good writers.
What a great homeschool project. Education is always so much better when children (and adults) are putting what they learn to good use instead of just storing it away for some future use.
brings back the memories!!
gem!
This newsletter is FABULOUS!!