Episode Summary
How do I introduce morning meeting to my students? That’s what this episode is about. I discuss the detailed process of implementing morning meetings in kindergarten, following the Responsive Classroom approach. The morning meeting includes key elements such as greetings, calendar discussions, and sharing activities, all crucial for building a sense of community within the classroom. By gradually introducing these components, students become more comfortable interacting with each other and expressing themselves. The podcast explores various strategies for organizing student participation in sharing activities and highlights the importance of creating a welcoming environment for students. Through activities like singing songs, reading aloud, and playing games, morning meetings can be made dynamic and engaging, fostering a positive classroom environment for meaningful interactions throughout the school year.
In this episode I share:
- challenges and strategies for morning meeting introductions
- second day of morning meeting: greetings and activities
- introducing calendar routine and expanding morning meeting
- engaging activities and games in morning meeting
- exploring creative greetings and sharing activities
- encouraging news sharing in morning meeting
Related Blog Posts:
Resources Mentioned:
- Classroom Community Bundle
- Kindergarten Morning Meeting Engaging Routines
- Greetings – Morning Meeting in Kindergarten
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
[0:00] Hey teacher friends, today on the podcast I want to talk to you about how exactly I introduce morning meeting when we are starting school and how I slowly introduce the different parts of the morning meeting. So if you’ve ever wondered that or you want to just see how another teacher does it, let’s get started. Before I tell you about how I introduce morning meeting, I want you to just make sure we’re all on the same page. I want to make sure we’re just all on the same page about what exactly are the components of morning meeting. So I do follow the responsive classroom approach, but I take my own little spin on it, of course. So the main components of the morning meeting are the greeting. And I think this is critical for building classroom community. It’s critical that everyone have a chance to greet each other. And it’s kind of non-negotiable for me in my classroom. Like every day we are starting with the greeting and I change up the greetings. We do different kinds of greetings, different length of greetings, but bottom line, everyone gets greeted. [1:15] The next part of the morning meeting for me is I go over calendar quickly, weather, days of school, that kind of stuff. Going over the weather is important. It’s one of our standards to notice weather patterns over time. We take a little graph of what the weather’s doing. So that’s how I meet that standard. Days of school, we count all the way up until 100. And then after 100, we count by 10s, but we’re keeping track on a 10 frame and that helps meet the standard of counting to 100 by ones. So these all have a purpose that I’m doing them. [1:55] There’s debate about doing calendar time with young children. You know, I do say like what the day of the week is. Do they developmentally fully know, understand that? It’s Monday and tomorrow’s Tuesday. Not really, but I do think it’s important to go over with them. And I do it quickly and sing-songy so it really doesn’t drag on and on and on. And so it’s quick for their attention span. So that’s my spiel. And then I go over the schedule, and that is also a non-negotiable because kids need to know what is happening in their day. They need to have a visual schedule up in the classroom, and they need to be told if there’s any changes to their day. They need to have that warning, you know, if you can give it, if you know ahead of time, so that they are prepared for those transitions and just prepared for what’s coming next and things like that. So all the kids need that, but especially kids with different disabilities or learning disabilities. After the calendar portion, then I read the morning message and then we do the activity. Now, there is also a share component to the morning meeting if you do it the full responsive classroom way. And I try to sort of blend that in with the morning message or the activity. [3:24] I used to have a great system when we were online and I could like think ahead of time about who would be doing what parts. I don’t know. Past couple years I haven’t found a great system that works for me. So I’m not going to talk about that because I’m not going to tell you about something that I don’t fully do well. I have share prompts if you’re interested in checking it out. I have a whole classroom community bundle that you can get that has morning meeting greetings, activities, share prompts, different ways to do the sharing. I’ve thought about it all. And there’s even a little video you can get that shows exactly how I do the calendar routine in a really kid-friendly, kindergarten-appropriate way, sing-songy, chanty way. [4:15] So that’s what it should look like after the first month or so. Well, after the first week or so. But really, it takes time to introduce all these different parts. You do not just from day one start all of this right away. So how do I introduce morning meeting to my students? That’s what I’ll be talking about today. So the first morning meeting that we ever do on the first day of school, I have the students come to the rug and sit in a circle. And that is like the big feat and that is the routine they are learning that every day when we come to the rug for morning meeting we sit in a circle and that’s the main thing I want them to take away from that. Then what they what I have them do is sit in a circle and I go around and I shake their hand and say good morning to them. This is important to me because I want them to see the value of the handshake that we’re going to be doing this as a class. I’m modeling for them how to do it, but also they’re hearing each other’s names, right? So they’re getting to know each other’s names and that’s a long process for them to learn their names, but also. [5:26] I’m not putting too much pressure on them to talk in front of the whole class. They’re just talking to me. And that’s important because they don’t know anyone yet. They’re nervous and expecting them to talk to the whole class. They’re just not ready for that yet. And there’s some kids who won’t be ready for that. And you might not know that yet about them. You might not know that they are learning English and they don’t feel comfortable talking in front of the whole class or they aren’t shy or nervous or have a disability. Or they need processing time like you just don’t know them well enough yet and so to put them on the spot like that it just i’ve tried it and uh it’s like crickets and everyone’s nervous and just just this is better trust me so after i go around and say good morning to everyone and shake everyone’s hand um then i let them share their favorite animal animal. [6:22] So I’ll have them go around the circle and share their favorite animal. And that is easy to give like some examples. And I let them say pass if they want to say pass. But it’s just a little get like get to know you activity, part of the morning meeting share, chance to speak in front of the whole class, but they’ve been warmed up a little bit and they have a very direct like a couple of choices. But depending on the group, I might also skip this, right? If I’m feeling like the kids are really shy or I don’t know, there’s years where I’ve skipped that part. Anyway, and then I will just sing a song. [7:04] If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands, that kind of thing. You could change it up to if you’re happy to be at school, clap your hands, right just something quick short and easy everyone could do it a little song and movement and then I read the morning message to them, and I’m not expecting them to read it with me I’m reading it to them so that’s it for morning meeting for the first day that’s it keeping it simple. [7:43] The next day, second day for morning meeting. [7:50] I might, depending on the group of kids, have them go around and shake each other’s hand and kind of model for that. But let me tell you, it takes a very long time the first time you do this, first several times you do this. You do have to do it at some point. Second day, depending on the kids, I might do that or I might go around the circle and do like a sing-songy greeting where really I’m greeting every one of them. I might do something simple like, where is, and you pick someone’s name, where is Ziba? Where is Ziba? Please stand up. Please stand up. Do a little wave. Do a little clapping. Sit back down. Sit back down. It’s simple. It’s easy. They’re getting to know each other’s names. It’s not putting too much demand on them or attention. Simple actions, something like that. Or you could do, look who came to school today, school today, school today, look who came to school today, Seba did. And the person whose name is called can stand up and wave or not. But, you know, I encourage everyone to just stand up at the very least, or whatever, give a wave. [9:13] But that’s again a simple song that’s not putting the pressure on on them so I think I tend to do more of that before I ask them to go around the circle because every time I have to go around the circle shaking hands it just takes forever it is pulling teeth and takes so long so I think the second day of school you’re better off doing a song like this one more song for you, Good morning to you. Good morning to you. Good morning to Ziba. Good morning to you. To the tune of Happy Birthday. And, you know, the kids will sing along or they won’t, but they’re easy songs. So these are in my morning meeting greetings pack, but I’m sure you can find. [10:04] Find versions online or just listen to this before before you start, after i do the greeting then i um read the message and then i do the activity so for the activity i do cross the circle if and i’ll give different scenarios and this is a chance for them to get to know each other i definitely model for them how to cross the circle calmly and quietly and safely. But so some examples are cross the circle if you have a sister. Cross the circle if you have a brother. Cross the circle if you like to play soccer. Cross the circle if your favorite color is blue. Cross the circle if you walked to school today. And then just encourage them to see, oh, look who else is crossing the circle. Oh, wow, so many of you like chocolate ice cream. Wow. [11:01] Later in the day on that second day of school when it’s like supposed to be kind of math time, not that it really counts the first couple days of school but when it’s supposed to be kind of math time on my schedule this is when I start to introduce the calendar routine I do it a separate time than the morning meeting because it’s just too long for them to be sitting on the rug dog otherwise. So when I’m introducing the calendar routine, I’ll show them how I want them to repeat after me. I’ll model for them all of that, the date, the day of the week, and the number of days of school, and the weather, and the schedule, and all of that. So again, you can get the video that showcases like how I do all of that. But I have a whole sing-songy chant routine for that calendar part of the day. [12:01] But it takes time to introduce it, to practice it, because it just does. Every time you introduce anything, it takes time. And it’s just too long to do that in addition to the morning meeting. [12:18] So the next day, the third day of school, I can, depending again, do like a sing-song greeting again. Or have them, again, this is where you could have them start to practice going around the circle, shaking hands, and it just takes so long. Just so you know, just be prepared. If you are teaching them how to do this, you want to teach them to shake hands. Look in the person’s eye and say, good morning, and use their name. And that it’s okay if they don’t know their name, you can say, what’s your name again? And anytime that they hesitate with shaking hands, you could say, it’s okay to say, what’s your name again? And then encourage them to do that. [13:02] If you are going to do this and you have ELL students, make sure to pre-teach them how to say good morning or encourage maybe give a non-verbal option for them as well. So now that they’ve learned the calendar routine the day before, you can jump in and do it, but it is going to add in some time to your morning meeting. Reading, and then after the calendar, I do my morning message where I read, and I’m pointing to the words as we go, and then I’ll do a quick head, shoulders, knees, and toes song. I’ll do a verse very slow, and I’ll do a verse very fast, but it’s quick activity because they’ve already been on the rug a long time, but it also gets them up and moving. [13:59] The next day, I’m doing all the same things, keeping it simple, keeping it the same. And for the activity, I’ll do a Simon Says activity because they’re getting a little bit faster at the morning meeting. So they can do some more fun activities, things that take a little bit longer, but that also get them up and moving because they were just, it just takes a little while when they’re first getting started. [14:24] Did. Another activity that I’ll do tend to do on the fifth day of school, and all of this, by the way, is in my lesson plans from the first two weeks of school back to school kindergarten activity product that you can get on Teachers by Teachers or my website because I literally go through it in my lesson plan what I do. So that’s how I’m remembering what I do as I’m looking at my lesson plans. But on the fifth day of school, I will sing Willoughby Wallaby Woo, where everyone’s this point, they should know everyone’s name. So they’re trying to guess who it is that I’m saying. So the way you do this one is Willoughby Wallaby Weeba, an elephant sat on and you pause and they have to figure out who you rhymed with. So you’re adding like a W in the front of someone’s name. So it’s like a rhyming thing. Willoughby, Wallaby, Wayne, an elephant sat on Jane. Right. Do you hear it? The rhyming. They’ll do the calendar, the morning message, and then they will play pop. And I love to introduce pop early because it’s a fun game. It’s a fun activity. You’re counting one to 10. But also, if I’m ever not there, it’s the perfect thing to leave for a sub. And so I just like them to know that early on before I forget to introduce it. So the way the way you play pop is you stand in a circle. [15:48] And whoever, you know, person to your right, they’ll start or you can start with one. You go around the circle counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. And the person who gets to 10 has to say pop and sit on the ground. And then you’re out. And it’s usually sad when you’re out, but not in this game, because in this game, you get to say pop and you get to pop onto the ground. And the kids like that. Then the person next to the person who popped starts back at one. And you keep going around the circle until you get to 10, right? It doesn’t have to be 1 to 10. It could be 1 to 5. It could be later on in the year, 1 to 20. Learn those teen numbers. It could be going backwards, 15 to 1. You could totally change it up as the year goes on, but when you’re first doing it, I would personally stick 1 to 10. It’s quick. Or you could do 1 to 5. That’s even quicker, but it’s good for them to know the number order 1 to 10. [16:45] So that is five days first full week of morning meeting and how I introduced it and you can see how I gradually over time introduced how to do the greeting we did the morning message we did a short activity and over time I made those longer and more detailed more for them to remember more more for them to do on their own. And we added in the calendar routine as we went along on during the first week. If you have questions about any part of the morning meeting, if you want more ideas, definitely check out the Classroom Community Bundle or reach out to me on Instagram at Kindergarten Cafe. And I’m happy to chat with you about that. [17:42] So our quote of the day is based on one of the greetings that I do, not the first week of school, but the second week. I’ll start it every Monday or every time we have a weekend, I start my greeting with, what’s the news? News so the kids go around and they say good morning miss mcgibbon what’s the news and i’ll say oh the news is and the rule is you can only share one piece of news from your weekend or that you’re excited about you’re thinking about it doesn’t have to be from the weekend i don’t want to limit it to what you did over the weekend but generally they want to share something and i limit it to one thing and i say if you have more than one thing you can tell us you can say i’ll tell you more at snack time anyway i love these greetings i love these sharings with the kids You never quite know what they’re going to say. So this news was last night, my brother had a really, really big poop that looks like a snake head. So that one had me cracking up really hard to keep a straight face on that one. But yeah, hope you enjoyed this podcast episode on introducing morning meeting at the beginning of the year.