Morning Meeting

We start our day together in a positive way.  Morning Meeting helps build a community in our room.  This is a time that we all come together on the carpet to do the following things:

·        Read our Morning Message that improves our reading skills and keeps us informed about the plans for the day.  This includes a Graph of the Day where we record in tallies or on a bar graph our choices, opinions and experiences, and thoughts.  This helps us to learn about each other, build connections for conversation topics and play out our day. 

·        Greet each other by name (we learn and practice many fun greetings)

·        Share information with each other to learn about everyone 

Early in the year we will have a “whip-around” where everyone shares the same piece of information like a favorite color or animal. 

After a week, we switch to an individual sharing mode.  Two children will be assigned a specific day bi-weekly to share a piece of information with us.  This is not show and tell.  We do not share objects or toys except for the beginning of the year when the topics are assigned. We are focusing on learning to share information concisely, practice respectful responses to sharers, encourage public speaking, listen attentively, and learn about each other in order to make connections.  When your child’s sharing day is approaching, please help him/her to practice telling you the news at home in a loud, clear voice.  It can be family news, happy or sad, about hobbies or friends, accomplishments or events, or just something that happened that is important to them.  It can be as simple as seeing an interesting insect, reading a new book about lions or having dinner at Applebees.  A calendar for assigned sharing topics will come home for September and October.  After those months, the calendar will tell you the day of sharing only.  These structured shares will help us to practice thoughtful responses before we move onto informational shares. If children forget something they were going to share, they will share anyway just using words, but are welcome to bring it the next to display.

Whenever someone shares, we ask for 3 Questions, Comments or Compliments.  Children need to practice focusing on the speaker instead of giving information about themselves.   If Sara shares “My cat is sick.  My mom took him to the vet yesterday”, we want to gear away from egocentric comments like “I have a cat too.”  We want to practice Q. C. and C. that will encourage EMPATHY and help us to learn more about Sara’s news or make a connection with her.  Here are some examples:

        Questions:  “What did the vet do?”  “How is he feeling today?”  (Questions should not have yes or no answers to allow the speaker to express themselves more, although we encourage speakers to elaborate)

        Comment:  “I hope your cat feels better soon.”  “You must be pretty worried about him.”

        Compliment:  “It sounds like you are very responsible in taking care of your cat.”

We are also practicing thicker questions vs. thinner questions.  Here are some examples:

        Sharing:  “I went to the park on Friday with my friend, Bobby.”

Thick questions make us think and require longer responses.  They help lead us to more questions, but thin questions make for a short sharing time.

I am always amazed by the thoughtful and insightful discussions first graders have by the end of the year at our morning meeting. 

·        Discuss any classroom concerns or problems that need solving and brainstorm solutions.

·        Group Activity.  This could be a game, song, or other activity that encourages us all to work and have fun together.  It starts off our day in a positive way and gets us moving.  Throughout the year we will add new Group Activities to our list of choices.  Your child can teach you some of them at home.

Daily Mystery Photo is a zoomed in picture of an object in the world, often taken from an unusual angle. We practice our visual acuity this way.  

Review our schedule for the day.

Our Graph of the Day -  could ask “What is your favorite season?” when the seasons change. We would look at how many people chose each season to learn about our preferences, infer about the results, and mathematically analyze the graph. Students practice giving reasons when they make choices, accepting different answers and debating respectfully. We use this to informally assess mastery of different subjects we are learning, review past skills, pre-assess new skills and connect to other parts of the day.

Since we study graphing at the end of the year, this prepares us throughout the year.