Ideas for what to Include in a Daily News Broadcast

Are you been hoping that ideas for what to include in a daily news broadcast at your school will come to you? This desire was recently expressed in our Facebook Community, and the teachers there delivered in a big way.

Segment Ideas

Look no further! Here are all the topic ideas you’ll ever need:

Daily Fare

Lunch Menu. Consider also reporting out the menu for the next day to prepare them.

Pledge of Allegiance. Use different students from different classes (each class gets a week) to mix it up.

Announcements. Include other information pertinent to the students (play sign ups, tryouts, picture days, events) .

Weather. Report on the skies over upcoming school events!

Sports

Scores. School teams and local sports teams (professional teams and major universities).

Include things such as Super Bowl and World Series champions.

Video game news may also be a hit with your students!

Jokes

Dad jokes.

Jokes to go along with certain holidays.

Monday Memes.

Bloopers from your own newscast.

Culture

Oct. 15th – Nov. 15th highlight a famous Hispanic American each day, same thing for African American History Month, etc.

Do a new food from a different country each week, usually a packaged snack food. The kids come on to try it and rate it. Then show where the originating country is located and give a few facts about it.

Language word of the week…if you have Spanish, French and Sign language classes do a word from each.

Word of the Day. You can theme these by doing all same prefix, suffix, latin root etc. for a week.

Recommendations

Feature a book or book series that they NEED to know about in the library. You can tie some of these picks into holidays and cultural heritage months if you like. Students can do book reports and recommendations as well. Then have a special shelf in the library for books featured on announcements.

FF a bit! A trend that began on Twitter, on Follow Friday you share the names of other Twitter users whom you think your followers should follow. Ex. “FF: @buffer @joelgascoigne”. Give shout outs to educational YouTube channels, great websites, etc.

Trivia

Interesting, weird, or fun fact of the day.

“On this day….” Websites like Teachers Corner are a wealth of historical events.

Check the National Holiday Calendar. Royer’s Resources has a pre-prepared daily one you can use!

Reinforce lessons you teach: keyboard reminders, code terminology, cybersafety tips are useful to everyone.

One teacher presents “Make your choice Monday” by posing would you rather questions.

School Community

Promote all PTA fundraising, activities such as spirit week, school dances and Homecoming activities.

Birthdays.

House points.

School news. Teachers email you about field trips or something happening in their classroom that’s really awesome and you feature it. Student celebrations or specific classroom announcements can be shared on a Google doc. For example, at one school 4th grade dissected sheep hearts and the tech teacher would have never known if they had not featured it on their broadcast.

Classroom Catch of the Day. Highlight student work or bulletin boards around the school.

Feature after school clubs.

Clash of the Classmates. Pick a class and they do a fun activity which you record them doing. You can try races outside, Pictionary, trivia questions, etc.

One school focused in on their flower wall and included a section to show off new hairdos. It was fun getting buy-in from staff, too!

A Catholic school includes a daily prayer as well as a Saint of the Day.

Show lost and found items too! Most schools have tons.

Interviews

Have students interview a teacher or staff member. One school had student council pick who got interviewed, and decide on 10 interview questions which stayed the same all year.

Student of the Week. Who they are, what they like. Have older students interview the littles!

Monday Mystery Staff Member. The staff member fills out 5 facts about themselves on a Google doc. Share all 5 facts on Monday, review 2 on Tuesday, 2 on Wednesday, 1 on Thursday and then reveal along with a serious and a funny picture of the person on Friday.

Two Truths and a Lie with the Teacher. Teachers will come on and give their statements, then students in the school vote with a Google form on which they think is the lie. On the following show do a reveal video where that teacher shows which is the actual lie. This is a favorite of teachers and students alike!

What do you Do and Why Wednesday. Introduce specialists or volunteers in our building that kids see but might not know.

Broaden Your Horizons. Show videos recorded by parents or other people you’ve reached out to, asking them to explain their careers and the education needed to follow that career path.

One news group will go ask teachers and other students with a question of the day. You can follow a theme about holidays coming up (like favorite Halloween candy, favorite Thanksgiving food, etc.), ask students about sporting events (interview football coaches and players about winning the championship game), on Thankful Thursday interview staff and students about what they’re thankful for, and also do funny ones (you have 10 seconds to make me laugh, show me your best dance move, make your funniest face, etc).

Interviews by the Bathroom. The news crew stands outside the bathrooms and ask kids a question, like “What’s your favorite….?” It’s fun to get a variety of answers from the diverse ages of kids.

Showcase Talent

Have students play an instrument, or do a trick.

One school had a teacher that sang all the time with her class, so they would bring the class in to sing holiday songs.

One teacher had students who wanted to write a skit for Halloween. They wrote it up, while the teacher edited and revised parts. They filmed over a week and the day of Halloween, the not-so-“killer” was revealed. It was really funny and students really liked it. They even laughed more over some great outtakes the following week!

How To

Do crafts like slime making or snack making at home. Speed it up to save on time!

Nurse Spotlight. Some have their school health initiative team come on for a movement or stretch as well!

PSAs accompanied by what to do and what not to do. Topics can include bullying, how to walk in the hallways, how to enter class, acting in class/cafeteria, etc.

Mini SEL lessons.

Think About it Thursday’s. For example: “Why do we wash our hands a lot at school?” or “Why do we use lunch room manners?” Think… about it…

Contests

Trivia, emoji puzzles, or math riddles of the day.

Play a small portion of a song and whoever is caller # whatever wins.

One school did “Where in the World was the Geography Teacher?” They filmed in a certain place in the school and gave some hints about it.

Throwback Thursday with teacher pictures where students have to guess who it is.

One teacher uses their friend’s Five Clue Challenge, then has made their own & had other teachers create their own to feature in turn.

Grammar Police with Officer Gram (your English teacher might love this role) wearing a police hat and dark sunglasses. Have a little challenge question, things like you’re and your or apostrophe usage, or when to use many vs much and then had a quick little grammar tip.

Winners can be selected out via drawing from the pool of correct answers. Prizes can be extra recess minutes or other cost friendly ideas.

We also do weekly challenges where the newscast is challenged to do certain things.

“Laugh Off” with a teacher and student.

Motivational Moments

Do a clip or quote for words of wisdom, growth mindset, mindful moment, etc.

End each broadcast with a daily affirmation such as “make it a great day, the choice is yours.”

Need material for all those motivational snippets? Grab a book such as Wise From Within. 

Do a quote of the week with an event or idea that exemplifies the quote for each day of the week.

Feature a monthly character trait song.

Have students submit “seen around campus” items. Secretly observed acts of kindness, bravery… Both ends can be anonymous – the observer and the observed. Alternatively, you can also do shout outs to specific students who have gone above and beyond for the day.

Logistics

 Looking for a platform for your news broadcast? Many of our Facebook Community newscasters use WeVideo. 

Any special announcements that clubs, teachers or admin have can be pre-recorded on a smart phone and sent to the news editor.

Involve students!

• One teacher has their 5th graders do the announcements, written out by their teacher.
• Another gives each of their 8th graders a “beat” (the content area in each grade, specials, school sports etc.). They email the teachers to check on upcoming activities so they can come in and get video, pictures, and interviews. This generated a lot more content for their school website (written stories & videos) and yearbook.
• Some also let students come up with their own features.
• Students love seeing themselves on the news cast, so as much as possible include other students other than the news crew.

Theme each weekday as a way to fit in special content on a regular basis:

• Marvel, Message from the Principal or Meme Monday
• Trivia or How To Tuesday
• Wonder or Wow Word Wednesday,
• Thankful, Thoughtful Talent or Health Tip Thursdays
• Funny or Fabulous Friday

Even if you or your school may not have time for a daily broadcast, you may have the time for a weekly event such as a Friday news show.

Examples

Check out The Madison Mohawks on YouTube.

This school has a daily video announcement live! Check out this typical broadcast or their YouTube Page. Kids write scripts, run the tricaster, and are the talent!

Here’s another school YouTube channel with a fourth and fifth grade crew each semester.

This printed monthly newsletter also has a lot of great segment ideas for you.