Recently, I got to observe a morning meeting in grade 6 at GT. I previously learned about morning meetings when I took the classroom management course in first semester of year 3. I learned about the benefits of holding regular morning meetings in your classroom, which the grade 6 teacher calls “community” in her timetable. I thought that this was perfect, as one of the main reasons that I’ve learned why teachers should incorporate morning meetings into their class routine is just that – to build a positive classroom community!

There is a standard format for morning meetings: greeting, sharing, activity, and message. To learn more about this format, go to The Pathway 2 Success.

This template makes it easy to plan your week of morning meetings.

Onto what I observed in the class! I got to see three morning meetings in this class on three different weeks. Out of these three days, just one activity was repeated – and that was one that the students voted on (a class favourite, I’m assuming).

The greeting this week was a “whole class hello”. The students looked around the class and said “HELLO!” in unison. Another greeting that I got to observe was the “cool handshake” – students roamed around the classroom and made up a unique handshake with three of their classmates. The teacher also used this time to check in with the class, asking them to give a “thumbs up”, “thumbs down”, or “thumbs sideways” indicating how they were feeling that morning. I thought that this was a great, subtle, and simple way to check the energy of the class right in the morning.

The next part of morning meeting is sharing. I got to participate in this one! The question today was “If your favourite colour had a smell, what would it be?” The students passed a rubber chicken to indicate who’s turn it was to speak. When the chicken got to me, I shared that my favourite colour is yellow, which reminds me of a lemon, so I think that it would smell like lemon or citrus. This was such a fun and silly question and most of the class chose to share, even when they had the option to pass the chicken to the next person. Last week, the question was a little trickier, “If you could create a new animal that is a mashup of two animals, what would it be?” I also got to share this week, and I would make a cat-dog combo (the ultimate pet). Fewer students shared at first, but as the chicken went around, I think that more students got inspired and ended up choosing to share.

Next is activity. This is usually a small game that can be completed in just a few minutes. Today, the class played 3 rounds of four corners before returning to their seats for announcements/message. Here are some more examples of morning meeting games for the activity section. My favourites from this list are Vocabulary Pictionary and This or That.

The message portion is reserved for any quick announcements. This is where the teacher went over the timetable for the day, any changes or things to expect, and then transitioned into their English Language Arts block.

Connections to the BC Curriculum for ELA 6:

Big Ideas:

Exploring and sharing multiple perspectives extends our thinking.

Developing our understanding of how language works allows us to use it purposefully.

Curricular Competencies:

Recognize how language constructs personal, social, and cultural identity.

Construct meaningful personal connections between self, text, and world.

Exchange ideas and viewpoints to build shared understanding and extend thinking.

Content:

Oral language strategies

Metacognitive strategies

Features of oral language

Presentation techniques