Starting the school day off with a Morning Meeting gets primary students ready to learn from the moment they walk into the classroom. A Morning Meeting is a 15 minute time period at the beginning of the day where the teacher introduces the day’s events using reading, writing, and math mini-lessons. It is a lively, student centered exchange that gets students interacting with each other and the subject matter by playing games, singing songs and answering questions.
Calendar Practice
The teacher begins the Morning Meeting by reviewing calendar skills. The class goes over the current day, week, and month and the day’s weather. This information is added to the classroom calendar bulletin board. The students can practice all sorts of academic skills while doing the calendar. Capitalization, spelling, decoding, and counting skills are all common things primary teachers teach using the daily calendar. Some even get a head start on teaching the multiplication tables by teaching students to count by 7s using calendar weeks.
The Morning Message
After the calendar is complete the class reads the Morning Message together. The Morning Message is a letter to the class from the teacher explaining some of the day’s events. The letter is written by the teacher on large chart paper and is hung near the calendar. The teacher uses the Morning Message to not only communicate the schedule to the students, but to also teach language arts mini-lessons. The teacher can model skills such as how to use different types of punctuation, the parts of speech, how to write a complete sentence, reading strategies, or anything other topic the class may be studying.
Review Songs
Once the Morning Message is done the teacher sings songs with the class to help them learn new academic or social concepts. Depending on which topics the students are currently studying the class may be singing about the days of the week or the times tables. The teacher also leads the class in fun review games such as, “I spy the letter __” on the Word Wall or the spelling game Sparkle.
Introduce Content
This time period can also be used to introduce or review content area topics as well. Teachers can demonstrate how to use math manipulatives, introduce a new science tool such as the microscope, or show students where a place they are studying is on a map. This teaser motivates students to learn about the topic later in the day and primes their brains to better receive and store the information. T
Teachers can even use the Morning Meeting to show how to use a new classroom learning center.
Student motivation us increased by beginning the day with a Morning Meeting. They are immediately engaged in learning in a fun and interactive way. Use the Morning Meeting with your elementary class this year and watch their learning grow!
Megan Sheakoski - Megan Sheakoski is a teacher, mom and writer whose ideas have been featured in college text books, graduate courses, on websites and on ...
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