A Guide to An Effective 15 Minute Morning Meeting
Do you want to implement a morning meeting but struggle to find a way to fit it all in? When I first started, I struggled to get every important component incorporated into my meeting. A traditional morning meeting includes a greeting, morning message, reviewing the schedule, sharing, and a game or brain break.
Greeting (1-2 minutes)
Our greeting is generally a very quick way that we say good morning to each other. Sometimes, we play a game to saying hello, sometimes we just say hello as a class, sometimes we say hello in a new language, and sometimes we say hello to our neighbors. It all just depends on the day!
My favorite tool for morning meeting greetings includes 23 already planned out greetings. I simply keep these on a binder ring and rotate through them each day. Once we have tried all of the different greetings, I either rotate back through or let the kids pick their favorites each day.
Morning Message (3-5 Minutes)
Our morning message is typically a quote of the day. I read the quote, then the students repeat the quote. After we have read it twice, students talk about what they think the quote means with a buddy and then we share out. We talk about what the quote means, and how we can show the meaning of the quote as a second grader THAT day.
Then, throughout the day students look for examples of people or book characters that show the quote. My students LOVE this part of the day and have become fantastic detectives to find examples of the quote throughout the day. Grab 150 pre-planned quotes of the day for your classroom today.
Schedule & Calendar Time (1-2 Minutes)
Morning meeting is also the perfect time to go over your schedule and objectives for the day. This provides students with consistency, and allows them to know what to expect throughout the day or for any upcoming days. I always allow time for questions about our day, so that students feel at ease and ready to tackle all of the tasks.
You can also incorporate any daily math that you want into your calendar time during this time. That might add anywhere from 3-5 minutes, depending on the complexity of your activities. I like to keep it simple – how many days have we been in school, how can we represent that number, and then identifying patterns on the calendar.
Sharing (2-3 Minutes)
There are two different ways that I incorporate sharing into my morning meetings. Either star student or by allowing students to share journal prompts that they have worked on during morning work.
Star Student: I love having a star student in my classroom. When I do Star Student, this is THEIR time to share and shine, and students can ask questions. Each day, they have a different task or activity to share. Typically, the schedule they follow is:
- Monday: Star Student Poster
- Tuesday: Special Items
- Wednesday: Parent Letter
- Thursday: Book Share
- Friday: Star Book
I give students about 3-4 minutes to share, then the rest of the students about 1-2 minutes to ask questions. You can read more about star student here.
Journal Share: Alternatively, I also allow my students to pick their own journal prompts each morning. Typically my students choose to write a story about something or to write their opinion about something. I always let my students share their journal prompts with a buddy right after, but then we share about the topic again during morning meeting.
On Mondays, we always skip our game portion and we talk with a partner about what we did that weekend. Then, we go around in a circle and students have to tell us who their partner was and what they did that weekend. This is a great way for students to be heard and feel validated about their experiences over the weekend. After a long break, I set a 1 minute timer and let students share about their own breaks rather than a partner’s break.
Game or Brain Break (4-5 Minutes)
At the end of our morning meeting, we do some type of physical activity or a class game. My students really love to play cooperative class games, and this is a great way to build a classroom community and have students work as a team to meet a goal. If time is involved, we keep our scoreboard up on the whiteboard all week and constantly try to beat our class’ previous times. We also talk about smart strategies on how we can improve our timing on games as well.
Similar to the greetings, I simply keep these games on a binder ring all year long. We play one game a week, so that we can cut down on instructional time and actually play the game for longer each day.
What is your favorite part of morning meeting? Drop it in the comments below!