Hear ye! Hear ye! Co-ops should include newsletters!!

Although publishing a newsletter is not a requirement to enjoying a successful co-op, it certainly adds to the co-op in many ways.  Here are a few benefits of publishing a co-op newsletter:

• The newsletter can be inserted into the portfolio to show the student's work
• Sharing the newsletter with family and friends is an easy way to keep others up-to-date with your child's school work!
• Keeping the newsletters to pull out and look at later stirs up fond memories of fun times!
• If the newsletter includes the student's published reports then they will be motivated to make sure their written presentation is presentable!
• By including pictures and summations of presentations (or the reports in full), one no longer needs to keep additional photographs and written work on hand.

There are various ways to share the newsletters with co-op members.  Some co-ops have chosen to print out all of the newsletter after the co-op has ended in order to have all of the newsletters bound together with a spiral binding.  Others have chosen to share a digital copy of the newsletter weekly, allowing the receiver to decide whether or not to print the newsletter and/or to print the newsletter in color or in black and white. 

The publishing program I prefer to use, Microsoft Publisher, has templates that easily set up a newsletter format.  Regardless of the program used, the main idea is to publish a newsletter that documents the co-op. Below is a copy of the front page of the American Girl co-op that just started yesterday.