What is a Morning Meeting and Closing Circle? Ideas for an Elementary Classroom Morning Meeting and Closing Circle is part of “Responsive Classroom.” There are…
One thing that I never did much of until this year was focus on building a strong classroom community. I felt like I had good relationships with my students, but I realized I wasn’t very good at fostering my students’ relationships with their peers. How important that is! If students aren’t valuing and respecting each other, then it can be really hard to get much accomplished during the day. So this year, after learning more about Responsive Classroom and building classroom community, I decided to put that at the center of my planning. Allowing time for my students to interact with each other and encourage each other during class was a priority for me. I took some aspects of the Responsive Classroom approach and adapted them for my classroom. I also took some things I’ve seen or heard about from other teachers whom I admire and adapted those ideas for my classroom as well. NONE of the following ideas are my own brain child; I am pretty much the queen of taking others’ ideas and changing them to fit my needs. That being said, I wanted to share the different ways that I help build a strong classroom community in hopes that it will inspire you to do the same. I also HIGHLY recommend researching Responsive Classroom and their approach to building classroom community. It was super eye-opening for me! The only reason I am not 100% implementing Responsive Classroom is because it was just too much for me to possibly take on in one year. However, I think adding a few aspects at a time is enough to make a difference and still be manageable. Building Classroom Community Monday Meeting This is adapted from the Responsive Classroom’s Morning Meeting. Having a meeting EVERY morning was overwhelming to me and something I’m not sure I have the time for at this point; but I did feel a regular class meeting would be instrumental in building that strong classroom community. The Responsive Classroom approach has 4 different components to the meeting: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message and is a daily 15-20 minute meeting to start the day. In my class, I do my meeting on Monday mornings. I create a short PowerPoint to go with it. First, I share a quick summary of my week and my favorite part, because I feel it is important for students to be included in our life outside of school. Second, I do a question of the week. This is sometimes an easy, get-to-know-you question that most students will answer. Other times it focuses on a trait or character quality I want to talk about – questions like “How can you persevere today?” or “Tell about a time when someone helped you.” I let as many students as want to answer. Third, I do a student share time. I have a schedule set and 5 students share each Monday. I have 20 students so each student gets to go about once per month. Lastly, I use this time for any important announcements for the week. It was important to me that students get the opportunity to stand up in front of their classmates, full attention on them, and talk about literally whatever they want. I have kids talk about something fun they did, or they bring in items for show and tell, or they tell about something they’re looking forward to. I don’t provide any guidelines for this time (other than keeping it under 2 minutes and 2nd grade appropriate). Students who are not speaking are to listen attentively, and we clap when the sharer is done. This is my students’ favorite part of the week! Quote of the Month On the first Monday of each month, I skip my question of the week and we talk about our Quote of the Month instead. I like to choose quotes that encourage a growth mindset or focus on another quality that I think is important. I choose the quote each month and display it on my letter board. Then, on the first Monday of the month, we talk about it during Monday Meeting. We read the quote together, I explain any words they may not know, and then I ask them what they think it means. I love hearing their ideas! Seriously, 2nd graders can be pretty insightful. After hearing their thoughts on the quote, I proceed to tell them what it means to me and what that means for our classroom. I refer to the quote often throughout the month but otherwise don’t do anything with it. I think it would be fun to once a month reward students who really showcased the qualities talked about in the quote, but I have not done that. This idea is adapted from the Keep the Quote trend. I only do once a month because it’s hard for me to keep up with it weekly, but Keep the Quote is another great alternative to this community building strategy. Table Points I love doing group work in my class, but unfortunately with the way our curriculum is set up, it doesn’t lend itself very well to doing group work often. So, I provide students opportunities to work together in a different way – table points. This is super casual. Each table has a number (1-5) and I keep a tally on a chart I made on my board. Anytime I think an entire table has done a great job working quietly, cleaning up, keeping their desk neat, working together well, etc. I give them a table point. Tables accumulate points throughout the week, and the table that has the most points at the end of the day Friday wins! The winning table gets to keep the VIP Caddy at their table the following week in place of their regular caddy. In the VIP Caddy I keep fun pencils, markers, pens, and pretty-colored dry erase markers. They LOVE it! I switch up their seating once per quarter so they have opportunities to work with different students. I love watching them help each other and encourage each other so they can earn table points. Closing Circle This is also taken from the Responsive Classroom. I try to end each day with a closing circle. My students absolutely love this time of day and are sad when we don’t get to do it (because of time). It takes only about 10 minutes! After cleaning up and getting ready to go, I have all students come to my gathering area and we sit in a circle. Then we go around the circle and answer a quick question (similar to our question of the day, but everyone gets to answer). This could be a simple “What was your favorite thing that happened today?” or a more thought-provoking “What challenged you today and what did you learn from it?” The point is, whatever the question, you are ending the day on a POSITIVE note. So, stay away from questions like, “What did you NOT like about today?” It can be hard to come up with questions to ask, so I created this FREE resource to help you out! Simply print, cut, and keep on a binder ring near your gathering area. Then, if you’re stuck, you can just grab these cards and find a question! These cards are available in my TpT store, or you can click the link below to download now. How do you build a strong classroom community? Share your ideas by commenting below!
If you can't take one more day of dismissal chaos, a closing circle is the solution. Like morning meeting, this let's you focus on what's important before you part ways.
It’s definitely that time of year! Hallways are filled with the hustle and bustle of end-of-the-school year excitement. In between closing sessions with students, team meetings, wrapping up s…
Closing Circle in the classroom The end of the day used to be chaotic for my students and me. I would be teaching, and suddenly the bell would ring. We would rush to pack up all our belongings. Students would forget to stack their chairs, leave homework on top of their desk, and leave the ... Read More about 4 steps to start Closing Circle in the elementary classroom
This worksheet goes over vocabulary used in business meetings such as absent, accomplish, collaborate, deadline, mandatory, etc. It also has some helpful phrases that students may use in the
Keeping morning meeting age-appropriate for older students can be challenging. Here are 6 ways to incorporate a variety of age-appropriate activities.
This digital “Zoomed In” (SET 4) PowerPoint activity is a fun and engaging game that is designed to be used in all types of learning environments. It gets your students focused on all the small details in a picture and is a fantastic way to promote and enhance conversations and class discussions. It’s perfect for your morning meetings, brain breaks, ice breakers activities, rainy/indoor recess, sub-activities, party games and so much more. Included: - Directions/Rules of the game - 25 Zoomed in picture slides (Each has 3 slides that gradually reveal the picture) Directions/Rules: 1. Each round includes 3 slides. 2. Look at the picture in the first slide. It has been zoomed in very close. Think about what it could be and share or write your prediction down. 3. Now, look at the picture in the second slide. This one reveals a little more. Think about what it could be. Has your prediction changed? If it has, share or write down your new prediction. 4. Finally, look at the picture in the third slide. This one reveals the whole picture. Discuss the details in the picture, encourage students to compare their guesses and share their though processes or reasoning behind their guesses. 5. Repeat with the next sequence of slides. FORMAT: PDF in a ZIP File Thank you for visiting and hope you enjoy this "Zoomed In" activity! Sue x ⭐ Click HERE to follow me or hit the "Green Star" at the top of the page. ⭐ Please remember to leave Feedback to earn TPT Credits to use on future purchases. Click on this LINK to find out how you can give feedback.
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I am always amazed by the fantastic classroom ideas other bloggers are sharing! Last week I read about interactive morning messages and a doubles chant for morning meeting. I have always done a morning meeting, but it keeps getting shorter and less meaningful. After reading these posts, I decided it was time to do it right, and it was amazing! When the kids came in on Monday, I handed them a post-it and told them to read the morning message and answer the question. My question of the day was-- Can you name a vegetable? (We are studying food groups in health--I was pretty shocked by the amount of difficulty they have with it.) I didn't know exactly what to expect when I gave this direction, but what happened was amazing! Kids helped each other read the morning message. They found the book we read about vegetables and referred back to it. They discussed spelling. It was wonderful. When I saw the answers, I was a little disappointed by the lack of variety (carrot and broccoli were the only responses), but I quickly realized that we could turn this into a mini-math lesson! Last week we learned about graphing, so I arranged the responses to make a graph and we analyzed the data. It gave me the opportunity to ask lots of higher order questions and expose them to lots of vocabulary words! The doubles-chant activity was also amazing. They LOVED this little chant so much. We just went around the circle rolling dice. When someone got a double, we did the chant and my modified actions (we bumped our own fists for bump, air punched over our heads for pump, jumped, and sat down to do a little rump jump). I used some big foam dice so everyone could see what numbers were rolled. The best thing that happened was the kids were so hoping for doubles that they spontaneously started analyzing the numbers. If a 3 and a 4 were rolled, they commented about how those numbers were neighbors and how close it was to being a double. If a 6 and a 4 were rolled, we talked about how if only we could move one of those dots from the 6 to the 4 it would be a double--ok, that one might have been me spontaneously analyzing the numbers. They really wanted to do something to "celebrate" the neighboring numbers, so I told them I would think about it. Well, I came up with a little neighboring-number chant, so we'll try this next time: I think I'll just have them shake hands with their neighbors while we say it. I'm hoping it will really drive home the fact that neighboring numbers are right next to each other. If you'd like to use my little chant signs, you can download them for free. Thanks to Jennifer Elementary School Garden and Donna @ Math Coach's Corner for inspiring me! Thanks Holly @ Fourth Grade Flipper for this opportunity to share what I've been doing--when I can get my excitement out on my blog my husband doesn't have to listen and pretend to be interested!
It´s an oral activity for students to practice vocabulary on movies and make arrangements to meet.They can use expressions to invite, accept and refuse invitations. They have to improv
Is your child learning about "bucket filling" at school? Learn how you can make this translate into your home. Steps to a happy, healthy childhood.
Looking for language arts extension activities? After any lesson, you can add on one of these quick activities for review and data for you.
This Halloween worksheet is called 'Who am I: Monster Riddles' and contains several riddles describing Halloween monsters - your students read the descriptions and guess the characters. Enjo
Business English phrases for meetings • Starting and closing meetings • Conference calls • Useful business English phrases • Advanced English
This lesson asks students to evaluate the Pros and Cons of Cancel Culture. This resource includes a close reading, comprehension questions, opposing viewpoints, critical thinking questions and a writing activity. Great for in class or distance learning! Kindy note that this lesson is editable so you can customize it to meet your student's needs. PDF and Editable Word Copy Included. Please click the "Follow Me" link below to keep updated on all my new offerings! https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Sellers-Im-Following/Add/The-History-Source
