Already Registered? Login

Activity Ideas

“Morning Meeting group activities are short and fast-paced, and involve everyone in the class. Though they may appear to be “just for fun,” they support crucial learning goals: Some activities incorporate academic skill-building components that tie in to current topics in the curriculum; others offer practice in important generalized skills like listening, following directions, exercising self-control, or practicing deductive reasoning; still others help build a positive classroom community”

–from The Morning Meeting Book

Find the latest Morning Meeting activity ideas in the articles below.

Everything You Need to Know to Use Morning Meeting at the Start of the School Year

Morning Meeting is an effective way to start any day throughout the school year, but it is especially impactful at the beginning of the year when you are looking to build a strong sense of community with a new class of students. Whether you are interested in trying Morning Meeting…

Continue Reading

Handle the Holidays With Morning Meeting

As the holiday season gets into full swing, maintaining a productive and pleasant classroom atmosphere can become a difficult task. During this time of year, students are frequently distracted by the excitement of holiday events at home and school events such as assemblies, class plays, and holiday dinners, which can…

Continue Reading

It’s Time to Reconnect

Helping students build relationships with each other is a key to creating an optimal learning environment. Stronger bonds mean students will be less likely to be unkind, to exclude others, to call each other names, or to stand by in the face of mean behavior toward a classmate. The safer…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Adapting Morning Meeting Greeting for ELL Students

Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting is a powerful way to create a classroom climate of respectful, engaged learning and the greeting component sets the tone by helping all students feel noticed and appreciated at the very start of the meeting. But how do you help ELL students participate fully in greeting?…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Doing Language Arts in Morning Meeting

Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting is a great way to set a positive tone for the day of learning ahead while also having fun and building community. It’s also a great way to give students rich experience with the language arts. Into each meeting component—greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message—teachers…

Continue Reading

Easy Ways to Vary Morning Meeting Greetings

How can you keep the sense of comfortable routine while also varying Morning Meetings enough to keep students (and adults) interested and engaged? Greetings can set the tone for the whole meeting—and the whole day. Question: Coming up with enough greetings to keep things varied and fun takes time—the one…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

What to Do When Greetings Get Silly

Do you often wonder how to keep the sense of comfortable routine while also varying Morning Meetings enough to keep students (and adults) interested and engaged? Greetings can be especially important because they set the tone for the whole meeting—and the whole day. Here's another answer to a question teachers…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Making Greeting More Engaging

Do you often wonder how to keep the sense of comfortable routine while also varying Morning Meetings enough to keep students (and adults) interested and engaged? Greetings can be especially important because they set the tone for the whole meeting—and the whole day. Here is an answer to a question…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Morning Meeting Lesson Plans . . . Where to Begin?

Do you think a lot about how to create Morning Meetings that positively impact each day and prepare your students for the learning to come? I'll share a little secret that has worked for me: Try planning Morning Meeting after you do your lesson plans for the rest of the…

Continue Reading

Teaching Skillful Communication

A Standards-Based Approach to Morning Meeting Sharing Ryan holds up the book so all his classmates can see the cover and begins: "Reptile Facts is my favorite first grade book. Every first grader should read this book because it shares facts about reptiles." He displays a few pages showing similarities…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Planning Morning Meetings for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

When Elizabeth Powell and I co-taught in an inclusion program for students on the autism spectrum, we discovered that Morning Meeting offered an excellent opportunity to address these students’ needs and to help them connect to their classmates by using two of their often overlooked strengths: humor and a passionate…

Continue Reading

Keeping Morning Meeting Greetings Fresh and Fun

After doing many Morning Meetings, teachers often wonder how to keep the sense of comfortable routine while also varying the meetings enough to keep students (and adults) interested and engaged. Greetings can be especially important because they set the tone for the whole meeting—and the whole day. Here are answers…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Morning Meeting & Science

How can we build upon children's natural sense of wonder about the world around them? How can we include more science learning during our busy school days? An answer is the Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting. Beginning each day with this purposeful structure helps strengthen the community of the classroom and…

Continue Reading

Fostering Imagination

Children need to develop the ability to think imaginatively and creatively. Children with imagination do a better job visualizing what they are reading, solving problems, entertaining themselves without devices, and thinking creatively in a variety of situations. I started thinking about the power of imagination recently after reconnecting with a…

Continue Reading

80 Morning Meeting Ideas Grades 3-6

Group Activity Idea: Encore!

Here's a Morning Meeting activity idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades 3–6, by Carol Davis: Encore! Students team up to connect vocabulary words with favorite songs. How to do this group activity: Place students into small groups of four or five. Call out a word or topic related…

Continue Reading

Group Activity Idea: Lost Tooth Poem

Here's a Morning Meeting activity idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades K–2, by Susan Lattanzi Roser: Lost Tooth Poem Children will relate to this poem about a missing tooth! My Tooth — anonymous My tooth fell out and left a space (pantomime tooth falling out) So big my…

Continue Reading

80 Morning Meeting Ideas Grades 3-6

Sharing Idea: Who Remembers My Favorite Book?

Here's a Morning Meeting sharing idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades 3–6, by Carol Davis: Who Remembers My Favorite Book? Playing a fun remembering game builds on children's listening and memory skills. How to do this around-the-circle sharing: Tell students they each will have a turn to share…

Continue Reading

Sharing Idea: My Favorite Season . . . and Here’s Why!

Here's a Morning Meeting sharing idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades K–2, by Susan Lattanzi Roser: My Favorite Season . . . and Here's Why! Challenges students to articulate a reason for liking something. How to do this around-the-circle sharing: Tell children they will be telling the class…

Continue Reading

Greeting Idea: Secret Handshake

Here's a Morning Meeting greeting idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades 3–6, by Carol Davis: Secret Handshake Greeting Creating secret handshakes taps students' creativity and builds community. How to do it: Students pair up and take a few minutes to create and practice a secret handshake and a…

Continue Reading

Greeting Idea: Backward Day Handshake

Here's a Morning Meeting greeting idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades K–2, by Susan Lattanzi Roser: Backward Day Handshake Greeting Students pass along a friendly handshake, but say the greeting backward. How to do it: Choose a student to begin the greeting. The first greeter shakes hands with…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Partner Sharing in Morning Meeting

If you visited my classroom during Morning Meeting these days, you'd probably see first graders working with partners and using the conversation skills we've been working on all year. We're now doing lots of partner work during the school day, and Morning Meeting is one of the times when we…

Continue Reading

Partner Greetings in Morning Meeting

By now my first grade students are pretty good at chatting with a partner. They know how to pair up quickly and how to decide who will go first. They sit knee-to-knee and look each other in the eye. They usually stay on topic, and each person has a chance…

Continue Reading

Photograph by Jeff Woodward.

Morning Meeting Is for Everyone

Welcome to Morning Meeting in my full inclusion classroom. Twenty-one first graders sit in a large circle on a brightly colored rug. I'm in a small rocking chair, my hand lightly touching one child's back. Another adult sits behind a child, supporting him as he sits with his legs, encased…

Continue Reading

Opening the Door to Math

Introducing Doing Math in Morning Meeting: 150 Quick Activities That Connect to Your Curriculum. As you envision the Morning Meetings you'll be holding with students this year, what do you see? Do you see math games? Counting? Measuring and graphing activities? It may not be common for teachers to use…

Continue Reading

Morning Meeting: One-Minute Greeting

Carolyn Bush prepares her fourth grade students to start their Morning Meeting with a successful, safe, fun "One-Minute Greeting."

Continue Reading

Math is Everywhere!

Recently, I was standing at an airport baggage claim area when a large ceiling tile fell and grazed my left shoulder. At about the same time as I felt the tile, I realized that a very large brownish-black rat had also been on top of it. The rat seemed as…

Continue Reading

Handling the Holidays: Morning Meeting Group Activity

Tips on using Morning Meeting group activity to set a positive tone during the build-up to winter holidays and vacation. Consider levels of movement and activity. How does your class respond (especially right now) to activities that get them moving, singing, and playing? You might need to scale back on…

Continue Reading

Categories

Classroom Management & Discipline

Positive Community

Teacher Language

Morning Meeting

Engaging Academics

First Weeks of School

Energizers & Activities

Positive Language

Special Times in the Year

Register for a one-day workshop.

Pin It on Pinterest