Our Morning Meeting

One of my favorite parts of our day is our Morning Meeting.  I have thought about letting it go from time to time (especially with the demands of testing season looming), but when I notice my students using elements of the meeting throughout the day (such as sharing compliments or concerns) I know just how crucial a piece it really is to our routine.

The goals of our Morning Meeting is to:

Set the tone for respectful learning

Establish a climate of trust

Motivate students to feel significant

Create empathy and encourage collaboration

Support social, emotional, and academic learning

At the beginning of the year, I lead the meeting an model the expectations, but I quickly hand over the task to a student.  I pick a new student each day to run the meeting (I just follow my class list alphabetically and then start over when we run through the list).  The components of our meeting are:

1. The Rules.  I use Whole Brain Teaching in my classroom, so we go over each of the 5 rules using the hand signals.

2. Our Mission Statement.  After the rules, we read our mission statement.  It is a modified version of our school mission statement, and it really focuses us on our goals for the day ahead.

During the next portion of the meeting students raise their hands to participate in each section.  The person of the day chooses a student who is raising their hand and throws a soft ball to them.  The students are expected to only talk when they have the ball, and to actively listen to the speaker. I have the student of the day choose three students to speak during each portion.

3. Compliments.  During this portion of the meeting, students compliment one another.  They might say things such as, " I would like to compliment so and so for being a good friend." or "I would like to compliment ____ for persevering during math yesterday." This year some of my students have taken to complimenting people outside of our classroom (i.e. family members, other staff members) and I have allowed it because they have been well thought out compliments.

4. Concerns. Students share concerns they may have about our classroom, school, students, etc.  They have included things such as the water fountain not working to me not teaching Spanish (LOL!).

5. I Am Proud of / I Am Working On. This is a time for students to share the things they are proud of and the things they are working on.  They might say that they are proud of reaching their AR goals, and they would like to work on mastering their math facts. It really keeps them accountable.  I have overheard students asking one another, "Do you want me to quiz you on your math facts since you are working on that?"

6. I Am Feeling ___ because. This is an idea that I took from a Ms. Noonan video ( you can see one below).  We use it not only to share our feelings, but also to work on synonyms and vocabulary words.  I don't have many English Language Learners in my classroom this year, but even my  native English speakers could use some new vocabulary words.  We call them "Fancy Dancy words".

7. Academic Content. I try to add Academic Content to each morning meeting.  Sometimes it is a round of skip counting, or some mental math.  Other times I might ask a comprehension question about our read aloud. 

Resources

My morning meeting is really a hodge podge of ideas gleaned from a variety of places, but here are a few of my go to places when I do my planning for this portion of our day:

I love this book from Responsive Classroom!

 80 Morning Meeting Ideas is another book from Responsive Classroom geared towards 3rd to 6th Grade.



I have also incorporated ideas from this video from Ms. Noonan.  I *may* have watched every last one of her videos and stolen tidbits from each one, because let me just say she is AMAZING!



I also have a Pinterest Board dedicated entirely to Morning Meeting Resources that I add to when I find additional resources and ideas.    Follow Kelly's board Morning Meetings on Pinterest.

Do you have a Morning Meeting with your class?