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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…

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…

Did you know that according to poets.org, National Poetry Month is actually the biggest literary celebration in the world? It’s never too early to start fostering a love of the English language with your students, and there’s no better time to begin than Poetry Month! Following are some great ways…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Here's a Morning Meeting message idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades 3–6, by Carol Davis: Use a message like this one to tap students' prior knowledge and engage them in their learning. (7+5)/(30–10)/(2020–9) Good Morning, Geometry Greats! Today, we are going to begin having fun with geometry. Do…

Here's a Morning Meeting message idea from 80 Morning Meeting Ideas for Grades K–2, by Susan Lattanzi Roser: Use a message like this one about favorite numbers to engage students with math. ¡Hola, Niños! Today is Wednesday, January 4, 2012. Garth is first today. Blanca is the door holder. Today,…

In addition to the other tips I shared for getting out of a Morning Meeting Message rut, I strongly recommend making a weekly plan. Instead of trying to come up with ideas for a message each and every day, try thinking about messages when you do your planning for the…

If so, you're not alone! I've been hearing from teachers who feel they could do more to make this part of Morning Meeting as purposeful, fun, and engaging as greeting, sharing and group activity. A well-crafted message can do many things: inspire students to think about the day ahead, intrigue…

Question: In many classrooms, the morning message chart is an important part of the beginning of each day and the first place that students go as they enter the classroom. On the chart, students find a greeting from their teacher, some news about what they’ll be learning that day, and…

Question: I often struggle to write the Morning Meeting message because my imagination runs dry. What suggestions can you offer that might help me come up with fresh and interesting messages? Answer: This is a common problem when teachers focus too much on being imaginative or entertaining when writing Morning…

During a recent visit to a third grade classroom, I was tickled by students' responses to a question on the morning message chart. The class was about to begin a unit of study on decimals, and the teacher was curious about what students already knew about the topic. She asked…

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…

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…

Tips on using Morning Meeting Messages and the last part of Morning Meeting, reading the message together, to set a positive tone during the build-up to winter holidays and vacation. Winter themes. As with sharing, you might include timely questions/themes in your morning messages at this time of year. Just…

Tips on using the greeting component of Morning Meeting to set a positive tone during the build-up to winter holidays and vacation. Observe your students as they enter the room before settling on a greeting. Are they bouncing and skipping through the room, wrestling and using loud voices? If so,…

As the holidays swing into full gear, maintaining a productive and calm atmosphere in the classroom can be challenging. Students can be more fidgety, giggly, testy, and tired at this time of year. In December, children are also often distracted by the excitement of home activities and by the stress…

There’s a happy buzz in Mr. M’s third grade class. It’s late fall, and the children take pride in knowing just what to do as their school day begins. First, there’s the morning message their teacher has written for them. The children gather at the easel a few at a…

I firmly believe that the better I know students—the more I understand the joys and challenges of their daily lives—the more responsively I can teach them. Similarly, the better they know each other, the more cohesive and empathetic a classroom community we can build. In my classroom, several kinds of…

One March morning, children entering a fourth grade classroom take turns gathering at a chart on which their teacher has written a message just for them: March 7, 2005 Dear Invertebrate Investigators, Yesterday we continued our studies about invertebrates, and we put two types of food in our worm farm.…

Question: Do you have a Greeting that works really well for Morning Meeting with your students? A: When we do a Seat-Switch Greeting, the children enjoy moving around to sit in different spots—they think it’s really funny if they end up sitting right next to where they started out. They…

Question: What’s one activity you’ve found effective for the interactive part of the Morning Meeting News and Announcements chart? A: I’ve found math challenges to be very effective. For example, I might write on the chart, “Write either a mixed fraction or an improper fraction and convert it to the…