Starting the school day with a morning meeting is a great way to build a pleasant and safe classroom environment with a mutual respect between teacher and students. Morning meeting, when held consistently, provides students with the opportunity to freely communicate with teachers and peers, and encourages a positive relationship between students and teachers. When planned with intention, morning meetings can create a safe learning environment where students learn important social skills such as active listening, patience, empathy and critical thinking skills (Ramadhini, 2019). Morning meetings help to develop a routine within your classroom . Establishing routines that allow for students to become active members of the classroom community helps them develop positive relationships and those relationships lead to effective learning environments (Whyte, 2004). When I have brought up the importance of morning meetings to my colleagues, I often hear that they do not have time to add this to their schedule due to all the academic standards that need to be met daily. While I acknowledge the time crunch teachers are facing, it is important to remember that academic and social behaviors are profoundly entwined with one another. Building better learners requires teachers to build a community (Whyte, 2004).
Morning Meeting Area
Now that we have discussed the importance of morning meeting in the classroom, you may be wondering how to implement it into your daily routine. The first thing to think about when planning your morning meeting space is the physical arrangement of the classroom and the students. You will want to have an area designated within your classroom to hold your morning meeting. Ideally, the children should be arranged in a circle where they will be able to see each other's faces. Arranging the students so they can see their peers faces encourages eye-contact and allows for students to start to understand and interpret facial expressions and body language. It is important to set the rules of morning meeting at one of your first meetings. Depending on the age of students you teach your rules will look different. I believe in giving my students ownership in the rules, so we develop them together in our very first morning meeting. Rules are posted and referred to frequently throughout the school year and can be modified or adjusted as needed (Whyte, 2004).
Once you have your morning meeting area set up in your classroom it is time to begin to plan out the twenty to thirty minute block set aside for morning meeting. It should consist of four components: greeting sharing, activity, & morning message. The morning meeting should take place in the same order every day to provide students with consistency and routine.
Greeting
Once the students are gathered in the morning meeting area it is important for them to greet one another. The greeting portion of morning meeting should take less than three minutes but is so important for our students. The greeting will help all people in the classroom learn each other's names and be comfortable enough to use them in conversation. Social interactions happens throughout much of our learning. A fundamental building block for social interactions is to know and use other's names. Hearing our name is also a reminder of our identity and individuality. Hearing our name reminds us that we are valued and that someone is trying to get our attention (Kriete & Bechtel, 2002). There are many different ways to implement greetings during your meeting time and it is okay to change it up. One way to implement greetings is by playing a good morning song similar to the one below and having students greet one another during it.
You can also have students high five, hug or wave to each other or you can make a game out of the morning greeting where the teacher starts by greeting someone and then they greet someone else until everyone has been greeted. No matter what way you choose to implement the greeting into your classroom it is important to remember and encourage the use of names throughout the greeting. Simply greeting your students is a great way to build relationships and community in the classroom. It lets students know that you are happy they are there and helps them to feel important.
Sharing
Sharing is a structured way in which students can deliver news they wish to share with their classmates. Classmates are able to respond and ask questions during this time. Sharing helps develop caring communication skills, strengthens vocabulary, and encourages habits of inquiry and thought important for cognitive growth. It also builds active listening because children are eager to respond to classmates news (Kriete & Bechtel, 2002). There are many ways in which you can implement sharing into the morning meeting. Some teachers have sharing boards where students can sign up if they have news to share. In my classroom, I set a timer and pull names. If this child's name is called and they have news to share they may share it, if they do not have news to share it is okay to pass. One thing that we work on quite a bit at the beginning of the year is making sure that the students understand that not everybody will get a turn to share every day, and that is okay. When the timer goes off, I ask my students to turn and share anything that they may have wanted to share with the whole group to a friend. Again, I set a visual time like the one below, so students can see and hear how much time they have to share.
Group Activity
Morning Message
The final part of a morning meeting is the morning message. This is a message that is either written before the students arrive or with the students. It should give some insight into what is happening in the classroom. You may tell them what they are going to do for the day or you can write about a goal your have for the students. The morning message is important because it encourages early literacy skills through opportunities to decode, read for meaning and by providing guided practice with using reading strategies such as prediction (DeNicolo, 2014). With younger students, morning message is also a great time to share the pen. As you can see in the sample morning message below, I wrote a quick message to my students and then they all got to practice writing the letter at the bottom of the page. By allowing the children to write on the morning message, it allows them to feel connected to it in a more concrete way.
Another great way to encourage early reading skills during morning message is to leave out a word and have the students predict what the word might be. By allowing the students to guess and prompting them throughout, students are being exposed to strategies that will help them become better readers in the long run. Once students have made some predictions, I will write the first letter and then see if their prediction changes. I encourage them to use the clues in the morning message to make meaningful predictions.
In my classroom, I like to utilize the morning message to discuss our class goals. For example, if I notice that my class is having a hard time playing fair when playing games together. I might write about what the word fair means in my message and let the students know that our goal is to play fair this week. Throughout the week, I will give awards to students who are meeting the goal and I will mention in another morning message that I noticed Sally playing fair during math games yesterday. While most little kids love to have their name in the morning message, it is important to get to know your students, as some students would prefer not to be called out by name in the morning message, even though it is positive reinforcement.
Classroom environment plays a critical role in children's behavioral development. For that reason, it is important to create an environment that is conducive to student learning. One aspect of the classroom environment is the relationship between the teacher and students (Obaki, 2017). As you can see, morning meeting is a great way to form positive, lasting relationships with your students. By greeting them each day and giving them opportunities to share news that is important to them, the teacher is showing the students that they are cared about and loved. The morning meeting block is filled with opportunities for learning and relationship building. Use this time wisely and remember that it should be based on your students and their needs. Being flexible during this time is important, as it will allow you to gain more teachable moments (Whyte, 2004).
References
DeNicolo, C. (2014) “¡FANTÁSTICO!”: Valuing student knowledge through the morning message. The Reading Teacher, 68(2), 135. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.24573714&site=eds-live&scope=site&authtype=sso&custid=ns083389
Kriete, R., & Bechtel, L. (2002). The morning meeting book. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation For Children.
Obaki, S. (2017) Impact of classroom environment on children's social behavior. International Journal of Education and Practice, 57(5), 1-7. DOI: 10.18488/journal.61/2017.5.1/61.1.1.7
Ramadhini, F. (2019). The improvement of speaking ability of children aged 3-4 years through morning meeting activities. JURNAL INDRIA (Jurnal Ilmiah Pendidikan Prasekolah dan Sekolah Awal), 4(1). Retreived from http://journal.umpo.ac.id/index.php/indria/article/view/1472
Whyte, D. (2004). Morning meeting and afternoon wrap-up. Peterborough, NH: Crystal Springs Books.
