This is how we do it: Morning Meeting!

Hello friends!  I'm here for some "This is how we do it!" fun... all about morning meeting!

 

I love morning meeting because I am a huge proponent of starting every day on a positive note.  Morning meeting gives us a chance to gather together, say good morning, read, sing, talk, and have fun together.  Here are the different things we do during our morning meeting: 

 

Good morning song

The first thing we do after we gather together on the carpet is sing a good morning song.  I created a little booklet of fun good morning songs and we use it like a flip chart, turning to the song we'd like to sing for the day.  Sometimes I pick, sometimes I let them pick! 

 

If you would like to download our good morning song book, click {HERE!}  It is geared to first grade, but if you would like me to edit it to your grade, please let me know!

 

After we sing our good morning song, we say good morning to the teacher (and any other aides/adults in the room) and then to each other!

 

Morning message

After greeting each other, we read the morning message.  I like to keep it short and sweet, and usually ask a question at the end.  Some days I let them have dry erase boards and they write their answer down.  Other days (depending on time) we just discuss it.

 

 

(You can see the good morning song we chose for that day in the above picture!)

 

Poetry

Next, we practice fluency through our weekly poem.  This poem is from Caitlin Clabby's (Kindergarten Smiles) free poetry pack.  I get poems from many, many different places.  We read this every day for a week or more, depending on the poem.  We practice reading it fluently -- not like robots!  "Read like you talk!"

 

Read aloud

Next, I read a story aloud to the class.  This read aloud is usually a theme book.  We've been digging into our Halloween books recently!  We also just finished up a class book, "Bootiful Halloween Adjectives" that I plan on reading aloud soon.

 

Sometimes, instead of a themed read aloud, I choose a big book and we choral read it together.

 

 

After the read aloud, we normally do a little comprehension activity.  This can be as simple or as complex as I feel necessary.  Here's one we did earlier this week.  We read "The Three Little Pigs" and used a venn diagram to compare and contrast the story to our weekly story.

 

Calendar

Lastly, we do our calendar routine.  We don't do ALL of these things every day (I pick and choose based on what I feel we need to work on), but here are the things we focus on during calendar time:  singing the months of the year and the days of the week, reading our monthly words, talking about the season, skip counting, talking about the year, etc.

 

And that about wraps it up!  All in all, our entire morning meeting lasts about 15-20 minutes.  If we do a longer story/activity, we will have a shorter calendar time, and vice versa.  It's all about balance! :)

 

Did I miss any important morning meeting staples??  Comment and let me know how you do morning meeting!