How to Create a Family Newspaper

In this electronic age, it is easier than ever to create and maintain a family newsletter. Your family will love having a way to stay in touch. You can build a website for your newsletter if you are technologically savvy or you can use one of the many websites that are designed just for this purpose, such as My Family.com. You can even publish a print version.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Set up your website. If you don't know how to set up a website, try tripod.com. They are fairly user-friendly.

2. Keep it simple and keep it small. Try and make your family newsletter look as much like a newspaper or magazine as possible. Don’t add a zillion links that are confusing.

3. Send a monthly submission sheet to your family members. Ask them to tell you any news they have, be it births, weddings, graduations, awards or anything else of note. Most family members will be happy to participate. You can send the submission via email or snail mail.

4. Include next month’s birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones and events in a calendar. Be sure to have a happy birthday column for the current issue.

5. Play games, such as brainteasers. You can find many different games of this sort online or at your local bookstore. A favorite for our family newspaper was asking a monthly question that each family member had to answer, such as "What is your favorite rag?" People wrote back with bizarre answers about some favorite piece of clothing they would never wear outside of their homes.

6. Get the kids involved! Ask the young people for their artwork, stores and poems. Kids love having their work showcased in this manner and so do adults. You'll find that everyone will get a kick out of appearing in the newspaper.

7. Add a "Person of the Month" page. Each month showcase one family member. Have other family members share their remembrances of this individual. They can share funny stories, favorite things about the person and other particulars.

Tips & Warnings

• Preserve history. Your family newsletter is a wonderful place to have family members record their personal stories in the form of memoirs.
• Save digital or print copies of each month’s newsletters. At the end of the year you can compile the whole years newsletters into a book.

Resources

• My Family.com

[kathamy]

on 6/14/2009 Thanks for the heads up! I'll check it out!

[edmonddantes]

on 6/14/2009 Our family newspaper looked so good printed, thst we plan send it out after we post online. Check out http://www.buildanewspaper.com. Their newspaper templates look real, and we got to choose the word length and page size. I think a teacher made them all, which explains why they're nice. Our family was very impressed!

[CBPope]

on 12/20/2008 The more I read, the more I'm inclined to start the newsletter in 2009

[Ceile]

on 1/15/2008 What a great article! I've set up family pages on the internet, and our family enjoys them tremendously! They add photos, news, and check for birthdays, etc. It's a great way for us all to keep in contact, especially since we all live in different states!