[2nd in TX]

Beautiful/handsome teachers!
I am a big advocate for Morning Meeting and am presenting on it for my district this summer. Please tell me all about YOUR Morning Meeting and also something you think I should NOT leave out of my presentation. Let's spread the love of Morning Meeting to all! Thanks!

[Jodi4/5]

I just started Morning Meeting this year and I really feel it made a huge impact on the "mood" of my classroom. We flex group our kids for reading and math which means I do not have my homeroom together for big chunks of the day. Morning Meeting has been our time to connect, dicuss the events of the day and in the future and make decisions. The rest of the day when everyone is running in and out, I know they are not all listening... but in the morning I know I have their attention. I purchased The Morning Meeting Book and found it very helpful in giving great ideas on how to implement morning meeting and make it successful.
We start each morning with a greeting. I really emphasize properly greeting classmates, by making eye contact and speaking clearly. We then play a quick game, go over announcements for the day and then take time to share. Sometimes we take 10 minutes, on days when we have a little extra time we go longer.
I am a huge believer and plan to spend time this summer improving my morning meeting routine.

[hkinner]

I also love morning meeting and I do the same thing jodi4/5 said, but I do have an idea for your presentation; that is if you have not thought of it. I think that you should go in and run your own morning meeting. That way they get a feel for how it goes. During one of my college classes we had to do it everyday we met.

[PopcornNhugs]

I haven't done a morning meeting in the past, but have spoken with co-workers who LOVE it. They also agree that it helps with the mood of the classroom.
I plan on buying that book this summer and implementing it in my classroom this year.

Question: Would breaking the students into small groups for 2 to 3 minutes of discussion be a good idea or is the point to get everyone together on one page?

[AmyH]

My entire school has Morning Meeting from 8:30 - 8:50 every day. In the morning I write a morning message on a small whiteboard (my 4th graders actually ask to write it the night before and I always smile because I think most of the time they have better messages than me!) In the morning, the kids come in get themselves unpacked and ready, read the morning message - there is always a question on the morning message, and complete morning work. For Morning Meeting - we do a greeting first (one child leads the greeting - one less thing for me to think about in the morning!), then we do share either a lightning share (which is when everyone responds to a question) or predetermined share and they get 2 comments or questions, next is a game sometimes - usually educational - something that we are doing in class for example putting fraction in lowest terms or putting the planets in order, etc and then someone reads the morning message to make sure everyone knows what it said and then we are finished.
It's a calm way to start the day and connect with their events.

[iPeach]

Could someone offer an example of what the message looks like? How long it is... Are they from a book or do you make them up depending on the activities happening that day? Thanks!

[Hylin]

For your presentation I would definitely structure it like a Morning Meeting. When I moved to the school where I teach now, during our professional development we were learning the parts of Responsive Classroom, and it really helped me know how to approach my students having participated in several Morning Meetings myself.

I also think it's important that you include all 4 components of the meeting. 1. Greeting 2. Sharing 3. Activitiy 4. News & Announcments. The Morning Meeting Book, 99 Activities and Greetings, and Morning Meeting Messages [all available at www.responsiveclassroom.org] are great resources for understanding each component of the meeting.

iPeach...I teach first grade, so at the beginning of the year, our message is little more than the date and a couple of sentences. Now, at the end of the year, we have much more complex messages. Also, the message should also always include something interactivie for the students to respond to. Here's an example...

June 4, 2007
Good Morning First Grade Scholars. Today is Monday. We have Gym and Art. We will also continue to be geologists and study more earth materials. I hope we all came ready for lots of learning today. Work hard and SHINE!
Love,
Ms. K
Write a few words below about what you did over the weekend:










Hope that helps!! I'm hugely in favor of Responsive Classroom.

[curlygirl2]

THe message looks a bit different...

Good morning Great Writers...

Please
1. Mark your attendance, sign up for lunch, notes, dismissal...
2. Please check off and hand in __ homework.
3. Complete your cursive for morning work.

List one fact you learned from your science reading last night.

I use the smartboard for this, which combines morning routine and academic stuff...

I ask the kids the first day of school why we do morning meeting...
My answer is that it shows everyone that it matters that you come to school... morning meeting shows everyone that and makes everyone feel that way...

[2good2b4gtn]

curlygirl2 and others,
I also like doing the Morning Message and have exhausted many of the ideas from The Morning Meeting book in teaching second grade. Next year I will have the same kids but will teach third grade. I liked how you incorporated the smartboard and was curious if anyone else had any ways they had used morning message, but more specifically for third grade. This is something that was very powerful and really helped develop a community feeling in my classroom. I would recommend Morning Meeting to all.

[beachteach]

I saw some books on Scholastic about Morning Meetings and Morning Messages does anyone have those? I thought about buying them and trying them out. I wanted to this year but time was a problem. Monday, Thursday, and Friday we went straight to a special after annoucements. Then as soon as we got back it was Guided Reading time and I had a teach come pull a group at that time. So it really didn't work.

I never realized that Morning Meetings had a formal process, but I've done them informally for a few years. One thing I marvel at is that my fourth graders still love to do 'Show and Tell'. So one thing I add to my morning meeting that they really respond to is giving everyone one day a week to bring in an item from home to tell about if they choose. I've seen some VERY interesting things. This past year I had twins who had the same show day, and they rushed into the classroom everytime it was their day, each one asking to go first. Needless to say, the kids got to see some cool stuff and hear some great stories each morning.

[aliryan]

This is how ours goes:

1. Come in and hand in our lunch orders, notes and home reading folders.
2. Sit in the floor in front of our whiteboard.
3. Say good morning and mark the role.
4. Go through our classroom rules- they are above the board as visuals.
5. Read our social stories eg. "When someone bothers me", "Doing the right thing", "Touching others".
6. Go through our schedule using the visual timetable.
7. Have news.
8. Secret sentence- modelled writing using our sight words for the week.
9. Calendar

Then we move into phonics groups. I work in a team teaching kindergarten class. We do our morning meetings as seperate classes and then move into same ability groups for phonics. I got my basic ideas for the morning meeting from "the virtual vine" website.