LEAven Blog

Morning meetings are class meetings that take place each morning before the hustle and bustle of the busy school day. Morning meetings allow you and your students a soft start to your day as you engage in welcomed greetings, shared experiences and messages to guide your class through the day ahead. As a former administrator, there were many observed benefits of implementing school-wide morning meetings.

Location
Start your morning meetings each day with a location to greet each other. Find a central part of your classroom, whether it be on your reading carpet, or in front of the room in a circle, where students gather.  After the bell rings or morning announcements have ended, all students should be sitting in the circle, ready to greet each other.

Greeting
There are different ways to greet each other during morning meeting.  One popular option is to choose someone (Student 1) to begin by looking at their peer (Student 2) to the right of them.  Student 1 can either shake hands, high five, fist pump or simply look at Student 2 and say, “Good morning Student 2.” The person who the greeting was directed to will then respond, “Good morning Student 1.” Then Student 2 will turn to his or her right and continue the same process.  The greetings will continue until all students within the circle have been greeted.

Class Share
The class share is a quick opportunity for students to speak to each other during morning meeting. The class share may take place to allow students to speak about specific class topics or to share about something that happened the day before.  Teachers may have specific topics to discuss during the class share or the class share may be open-ended. Many teachers keep a visual of who spoke so that all students have an opportunity to participate in the class share throughout the week.

Class Activity
Class activities are fun activities or games that students can play to increase student bonding. Activities are meant to be simple such as Rock, Paper, Scissors. Students walk around the room, and the teacher says STOP. Students must find someone to play Rock, Paper, Scissors. The person who loses sits down while the winner continues to play with the others. Students keep playing until there is only one winner left. Class activities are easily found by searching online as they are free and easy to implement.

Morning Message
The morning message allows the teacher to share the highlights of the upcoming day.  The message is normally displayed as a typed letter on a projector or a written letter on a board or easel.  The message is written to the class and can include specific scheduling for the day such as an added assembly. It may include class issues or concerns that need to be addressed before the day begins such as a needed review of a class expectation or a behavior concern. Teachers will also add in specific content from subjects such as the day’s science experiment or an upcoming book to be read. The message is displayed for all to read, and the teacher normally reads it aloud.

Teachers may decide to choose a class share or a class activity if time is an issue.  The greeting and the morning message are meant to be completed each morning. The goal of the morning meeting is to bring your class closer together, allowing your students (and you!) to start your day on a positive note. 

*The inspiration for this blog post comes from the book by Karen Poplawski called The Morning Meeting Book.