Morning meeting is SO important because it can set the tone for your entire day! But what do you include in your morning meeting routine to make sure that you get the most out of your time?
Today, I am going to walk you through our morning meeting routine and how I structure it to set our day up for success.
At the beginning of the year, morning meeting may take your class a little longer to get through as they learn the routine. But once they get it down? Believe it or not, you can fit all this in 20 minutes!
Morning Meeting Greetings
After we get settled at the carpet, we always start off our morning meeting routine with a greeting.
Greetings are a great way to build community, give students with social anxiety a nonthreatening way to interact, and to incorporate movement.
As much as possible, I try to choose greetings that will allow us to cross the midline.
This is important because, if students are unable to cross the midline, they may have more difficulty in both reading and writing which require them to track left to right.
This resource full of fun morning meeting ideas is a freebie for you!
I have also included pages that explain each greeting. These would be perfect to stick in a substitute binder. Then they can keep the morning meeting routine going even when you are not there.
Deep Breathing Exercises
I get students’ attention again by saying “3-2-1 and done.” By the time I get to 1 they should be back in listening position and quiet.
Of course, greetings are going to get us revved up! We calm back down again by doing a deep breathing exercise.
I let a student choose one exercise (from my calm down kit) and we do it three times.
This helps the brain reset. You can read more about our calm down kit here.
Sharing In Our Morning Meeting Routine
I have a dedicated time during our morning meeting routine when students can share.
To me, this is important because it gives students a time to connect and it also gives them practice with speaking and listening.
This sharing time looks different each year depending on how big my class is.
If my class is smaller (24 students or less), we have a circle share time. We all sit around the perimeter of the carpet in a big circle. Students pass around a talking piece. Whoever is holding the talking piece gets to share.
I try to use talking pieces that allow students to fidget. If you have students who take f o r e v e r to talk, you can try using a timer talking piece. I’ve never had a student upset when their time is up because they understand timers!
Most of the year, they can just share anything they want – what they did last night, something exciting to them, whatever is on their heart.
At the beginning of the year, I will ask a simple question for them to answer to get them used to the routine. What is your favorite toy? Where do you like to eat?
If I have a larger class (this year I had 30 students!) and this isn’t possible, we start with a turn and talk. Then students still get to share every day.
I use these visuals when teaching my students how to turn and talk. You can grab them as a freebie here.
After students turn and talk with their partner, then I choose a few to share to the whole class. Not everyone gets to share to the whole group every day. We just don’t have time with that many kids, but they all will get a chance during the week.
Morning Message in Kindergarten
After we share, we read our morning message together. This message stays the same all year.
Forgetful teacher hack: I laminate my morning message each month and just fill in the information with a dry erase marker! I can’t tell you how many mornings I would forget to write a morning message before this.
As the months progress, I will leave out letters or words for students to solve. In later months, I will also add quick problems for them to solve.
Alphabet Chart and Sight Words Routine
Our alphabet chart routine is the same every single day and it is such an easy way to build letter intervention into your day quickly!
The alphabet chart is from my phonics curriculum and it matches the real photo alphabet posters we have in our room.
For this morning meeting routine, I point to a letter and say the name, then picture, then sound (A, apple, /a/). Students then repeat after me. We do this for the entire chart.
Once students get used to this routine, I can have an alphabet chart helper lead the routine.
We then introduce or review our weekly sight words. I love these visual and kinesthetic sight word cards from Eyewords!
Youtube Videos and a Brain Break
We end our morning meeting with an alphabet song for review and then a brain break dance to get us up and moving before our reading lesson!
Some of my favorite alphabet songs for this time are:
–What Do the Letters Say?
–Watch the Letters Get Down
–Act Out the Alphabet
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Thank you so much for the great ideas, activities, visuals, and set up of morning meeting! I love the way you have the message written with blanks to fill in and laminated to reuse! Brilliant and makes it possible!
Thanks so much! I’m glad it was helpful. ❤️
I teach in special ed and all these morning meeting suggestions are super helpful for my self contained class! Also, when I mentor other teachers, I let them know that routines like this can make or break you overall classroom management. You nailed this one on the head!
Thanks for laying it all out for us… and double thanks for the freebie ❤️️!
-Ayo at http://www.NoodleNook.net
Thank you, Ayo! ❤️
I am a mom doing homeschool and trying to recreate the kindergarten experience as much as I can. Do you change your morning meeting during the year? Is what you do in December the same as what you did in August? Trying to figure out how to adjust after kids have mastered a skill and things start becoming monotonous….
Kind of. We stick to the same routine but the skills change. For the morning message, I will start leaving out words or sounds for the kids to fill in. I will also put a question at the bottom for them to answer. We still do our alphabet chart routine all year because I have a wide range of students, but if your child knows their letters and sounds you could switch that out for a blends and digraphs chart. You would do the same routine but with the blends and digraphs. Instead of an alphabet song, we will do a blends and digraphs or CVC words song and also do a sight word song. If kids have mastered a skill, I would definitely move on to the next skill.
Hello!
Do you have an all year Morning Message bundle to purchase or recommend one? Thank You!
Hi there! I usually keep my morning message relatively the same all year, but I do have digital morning meeting slides that has a place for your morning message, daily share prompts, breathing exercises, etc all ready for you. You can find them on my website (linked here) or on tpt. https://natalielynnkindergarten.com/product/digital-morning-meeting-slides-and-activities/
Wow, these are great activities in the morning! A good way to refresh their memory and preparation for their day.
Do you still have the Turn & Talk visual cards as a freebie? The link did not go to them.
Hi! The link worked for me. I would try one more time.