Parent Communication - SmileBox

I have recently started sending home a newsletter to parents via SmileBox (well... I've sent one so far) and I'm in love! I was actually about to start doing up the second newsletter and for some reason my photos aren't copying over to my computer from my camera- explorer is freezing every time. Poohy. 

I thought I'd post about it because it would be a great way for my northern friends who are finishing up school soon (lucky you!) to send home a celebration newsletter or photo album highlighting all the wonderful things you've done this year.

If you haven't used SmileBox you can check it out here. Basically, SmileBox has 1000 design templates ready to go that you can use for newsletters and you just insert the photos, text, videos and/or music you want to go with it. It's free to use (basic designs only and there's ads on playback), but you can also sign up for a fee so that there's no ads when you send it out and you have access to all the designs.

To create your newsletters, greeting cards or anything else you want to send, you simply choose your design (here are the school themed ones, but there's also seasonal, special days etc). You can choose slideshows, collages, photo albums, scrapbooks, newsetters or greeting cards so you can have more photos, less writing if you choose. You can also choose how many pages you want to have.

Here is a Family Newsletter design. You simple add your photos to SmileBox and then click and drag the photos to where you want them to go. I've just inserted random blog post photos here. On the right, you can change the colour scheme and some other things.

Once you've added your photos and text, you can also choose music to play as well! When you're done, you can share it via email or the other ways mentioned below. I emailed mine. Once you've put all parent emails into SmileBox, it saves them for next time. Parents just click on the link and it opens up the newsletter. It's private in that you can only view it if you receive the link and they can't see the other email addresses it was sent to.

Anywho, I really like it (and no I'm not getting paid for this post :D!). The best thing is that you can use it for anything, not just school like Christmas letters/photos to family, that sort of thing. I only wish it would let you attach documents, as I often want to send information home to parents.

It's my student teachers last week this week :( It's so great having another pair of hands and eyes in the classroom. I'll miss her!