Our Education Blogger is a public school teacher with over a decade of experience. She’s an active NEA member and enjoys writing about her experiences in the classroom.
If you’re like me, you’ve never really had a structured morning meeting as part of your school day. I simply didn’t have the time. However, over the years, I’ve found that I can squeeze in time during other parts of the day. After incorporating our “afternoon” meeting into our schedule, I saw amazing, positive changes begin to happen in my students. Not only did we get a chance to learn more about one another, but we built stronger relationships, practiced empathy skills, and even had some laughs.
What Is A Morning Meeting?
A time, usually 20-30 minutes, set aside each morning for teacher(s) and students to connect. If you can’t meet in the morning, find another time that works for your classroom schedule. Most often, students and teachers sit in a circle.
Why Should My Classroom Have Morning Meetings?
Morning meetings are an ideal time to:
- Check-In with students
- Build a classroom community
- Allow students to practice academic and social skills
What Does A Classroom Meeting Look Like?
Using the Responsive Classroom model, morning meetings contain four components:
- Greeting: students and teacher say hello to one another by name. You might require pairs of students to shake hands and say “Good Morning __________.” You could even try it in another language!
- Share and Listen: in an organized fashion, students share about themselves or important events happening in their lives while the other students listen, ask questions, or offer advice. I used this time to read from my “Compliments & Complaints” box.
- Activity: prepare a short group activity that requires teamwork and allows students to practice a skill (acting out a skit, playing a game, solving a puzzle, etc.)
- Message and Announcements: write a message with daily announcements on the board for the day, have students read it and respond to it. This is a sneaky way to force students to actually look at the day’s schedule, announcements, and other important information, and ask questions if necessary.
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