Morning Meeting

Today was the third full day of school, and I am still working on tweaking my schedule so we can get it "just right."  For the last three years, I have had my planning time in the afternoon.  This year, my planning is from 11:10-12:10.  We don't have lunch until 12:35-1:05.  This schedule is SO DIFFERENT from what I'm used to that I'm having a hard time figuring out how to structure our day.  The three hour block in the morning sounds good on paper, but I'm finding that it is WAY too long for the kids to focus without some brain breaks built in.  We will keep making minor adjustments until I find a schedule that "clicks."

One part of our day that IS working well is the Morning Meeting.  For the last few years, Morning Meeting has been a popular trend in education, especially with elementary teachers.  The idea is that you spend 15-30 minutes each morning building community and tackling content in a predictable, non-threatening way.  You deal with the affective filter first thing, making sure everyone is comfortable in the classroom community and that they are all ready to learn.

Now, I am not new to Morning Meeting.  I have done it in some form or fashion since I taught 1st grade seven years ago.  Each year, it's looked a little different.  For the last two years, we have had to switch classes for reading first thing in the morning, which made it difficult to fit in all of the components of Morning Meeting each day.  This year, we aren't changing classes at all (yay!) and so I am able to do all of Morning Meeting at one time!

According to "the books", Morning Meeting has 4 main components: Greeting, Activity, Sharing, and Message.  I have added a 5th component for my classroom: News.

Greeting
The purpose of the Greeting is to make sure that every child is welcomed by name every day.  Of course, when the students are arriving, I position myself at the door to greet them by name as they enter.  But it's not enough for ME to welcome them.  I want them to welcome each other.  So, each morning, after we gather on the circle for Morning Meeting, we will have a Greeting.

There are lots of different ways to do Greetings.  The first day, we used a simple handshake and introduced ourselves in English.  "Hello, Sue.  My name is Fred.  It's nice to meet you."  The second day, we shared our home country.  The third day of school, we greeted each other in Spanish.  Today, we shook hands and said, "Good morning, Fred.  I'm glad you're here today!"

With as many languages as are spoken in my classroom, we should be set on Greeting ideas for a good, long time.  You can find tons of good ideas for Greetings in this book:

available at Amazon

Activity

The second component of Morning Meeting is the Activity.  Again, the opportunities are endless!  The first day, we played "Quiz-Quiz-Trade" with questions designed to help us get to know one another.  We have also played a ball game that helps us learn each other's names.  The idea is to do a short, fun activity that involves everyone.  

Sharing

The purpose of sharing is to acknowledge the fact that each of us is an individual with unique preferences, gifts, and background experiences.  It is also a time for me to get to know my students better, so that as a teacher, I can better meet their needs.  

As with all components of Morning Meeting, there is no one "right" way to do Sharing.  I have tried a variety of different ways.  This year, I am allowing the Star Student of the Day to share during Sharing Time.  They may bring something from home to show the class, or they may simply talk about something that interests them.  After a brief presentation, the student says, "I am now open to questions and comments."  This is a great opportunity to practice our skills in constructing smart questions!  The Star Student calls on up to three other students and answers their questions.  Then the Star Student says, "This is the end of my presentation.  Thank you for letting me share.  If you have more questions, you may ask me during recess or lunch."  This gives the students the opportunity to discuss the topic in more depth on their own time, while allowing us to go on to other things.

Morning Message

Each morning, when my students enter the room, they find the Morning Message written on chart paper.  This message isn't very long, and is always interactive.  Sometimes, I'll have a math problem for them to solve.  Other times, I'll include academic vocabulary that we are working on.  The Morning Message is a good way for us to get on the same page for the day, and for me to introduce the objectives we will be working on.

Here are a couple of examples of our Morning Message, taken from the first few days of school:

This message was from the very first day!  Notice that I used the response question as a way to get VERY IMPORTANT information about dismissal.

This is from the second day of school.  The Message is related to the book that we would be reading later in the day.  I also used the opportunity to introduce the key components of our class schedule.

As the year progresses, I will use Morning Message to teach all kinds of skills.  We will identify the parts of a friendly letter.  We will edit the teacher's "mistakes" in spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.  We will review important concepts, and we will answer lots of fun survey questions.

News (my own addition to Morning Meeting)

This year, I am trying to add a 5th component to my Morning Meeting- News Time.  The idea is that I will have a copy of the newspaper in the room, and the Star of the Day will choose 1 story to share with the class.  Besides covering current events, we will talk about a variety of nonfiction text features during this time.  We have already discussed pictures and captions, headlines, and subheadings.  The kids were fascinated by a table that appeared in the Tennessean showing the number of medals each country has earned in the Olympics.  One student (who is a nonreader) chose to share a Walmart ad.  We talked about that author's purpose for writing (to persuade) and how it was different from the other parts of the newspaper, which are written to inform.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I'll be able to continue this component of my Morning Meeting.  I called the offices of The Tennessean, asking if they still provide copies of the newspaper to classrooms.  I was told that the subscription price was $26 a month.  When I asked again, I was given a name and number of an "educational liaison" at the Tennessean.  Unfortunately, the number I was given does not get you to a real person and does now allow you to leave a voice mail.

Frustrated, I turned to our wonderful media specialist to see if she could make headway.  She finally talked to someone who said that we could view the electronic version online (making it more difficult to present the text features) or could purchase a subscription for a discounted price of $12.50 a month.  While that doesn't sound like much money, that's $125 over the school year. That is over half the amount I get to spend for my entire classroom for a year!  Sigh.

So, that's my Morning Meeting in a nutshell.  If you want to read more about morning meeting, check out this book, available at Amazon:

Happy Teaching!

On Organization

A new year means a fresh start.  I enjoy working in a job that starts fresh every year.  Usually, I try to use the summer as a time for reflection and to figure out what I want to change in my class for the next school year.  This year, I didn't really get a summer, so my reflection time was brief.  I have thought about my classroom procedures and organization (I'll get to curriculum and lessons in later posts).  Here are some random thoughts:

Organization of Materials
Last year I used caddies on each table that contained markers, dry erase markers and erasers, highlighters, and scissors.  I found plastic 2-drawer caddies that held all the materials nicely.  This worked really well.  I liked the fact that the kids had everything at their fingertips.  This year I found new caddies that are similar to the old ones, except they have a 3rd drawer for crayons.

Class jobs
I have tried a bunch of different ways of assigning jobs to the students in my class.  I started with a traditional chart, which I rotated on a regular basis.  I quickly decided that switching everything out so often was a pain, and that I was constantly having to train different students on different jobs.

As a second grade teacher,  I adopted an elaborate classroom economy system, in which students would apply for jobs and would be "paid" with fake money, which could then be used to shop at the school store.  While the classroom economy was a lot of work, the payoff was huge.  The kids loved it, and I was able to incorporate a ton of social studies and economics standards into the process.  I kept the system when I was moved to 3rd grade.  However, when I was bumped (again!) to 4th last year, I didn't have it in me to do the classroom economy system AND new standards AND testing, AND....

So last year I didn't really have class jobs at all.  I casually identified people who were good at certain things, and would pull them in as needed.  While this worked worked out well for ME, it wasn't great for the kids.  I tried to informally give kids a job to do, but without a system, I'm afraid it wasn't very fair.

This year, I m trying the system that Mrs. D, my hall neighbor, uses in her classroom.  Each day, one student is assigned as the student teacher.  Any job that needs to be done, the student teacher is the one to do it.  He/She passes out papers, takes notes to the office, leads the line, and helps lead the Morning Meeting.  Each student will have a chance to be the student teacher every 4-5 weeks.  I really hope that this is a situation where simpler really is better.

Graded Papers
In the classroom, each student has a mailbox.  After I grade a set of papers, I sort them (or have a student sort them!) into the mailboxes.  Last year, I would have the students check their mailboxes at the end of every day.  I believe that this year, I am only going to send home papers once a week, in a folder that the parents will sign and return.

Pencils
You wouldn't think that pencils would be such a big deal in a classroom, would you?  Making sure everyone has a sharpened pencil when they need it is more complicated than it sounds.  Do you let kids get up to sharpen pencils as needed?  Definitely not- it disturbs the class and gives them a great excuse to wander around the room if they want to avoid the task.  Plus, kids tend to destroy mechanical pencil sharpeners.  I have been through at least six pencil sharpeners in the last six years!

So why not have everyone bring their own personal sharpener to use as needed?  Great idea, except that they seem to have a super-special gravity property that makes them prone to falling on the floor and spilling shavings all over the place, usually right when you're at the most important part of your lesson.

I have found it easier to keep a bunch of sharpened pencils in a jar.  If a point breaks, they raise their pencil in the air.  I can grab a new pencil and deliver it to them without ever interrupting my teaching.

So, those are the organizational changes/improvements I've made this year.  What works in your classroom?

First Day

Today was the first day of the new school year.  That's right- we started back to school on August 1.  Our district is moving to a modified year-round schedule.  So far, I'm not a fan.  I need more summer!

I spent the last couple of weeks getting my room ready for the big day.  Here are a couple of pictures from the process.

Everyone is welcome!

Classroom Library, Reading Corner, and Word Wall

Thinking Maps

Just inside the front door

As you can see, I want my classroom to be a colorful, exciting place!  I have lots of primary colors and try to make everything accessible to the kiddos.  These pictures are from last week, when it was still a work in progress.  Tomorrow, I'll take some "after" pictures, to show the finished product.

Happy Learning!