|
Morning Meeting
Morning Meeting is a
regular part of our preschool day. It's primary purpose is to be a time of
community building. We have a special group meeting area in our classroom
at our big rug. The rug sits in front of the large dry erase board in
my room. Each child has his or her own spot to sit at the rug. My rug has
pictures around the edges so it makes it easy for me to direct the children
is they are not on their spot. I a\can simply say, "Joey sit on the
bike" and Joey knows he needs to go back to his spot, it is very
concrete.
Here we gather to
"greet" each other and carryout other components of the morning
meeting. Our greeting consists of either a hello song, a hand shake, or a
name game.
We choose a "star
student" every day. I have all the kid's names written on "Star
Student Stickers." The kids do a "drum roll" and then I just pull one
out each day. When we get through everyone we start again.
That student is like the
special helper for the day. For example, they get to be the line leader,
and go first to wash hands for snacks.
At the
start of the week we have a "letter" in the mailbox. (I use the
blue Step Two mailbox.) In it is our spotlight letter. I just put a letter
from a bulletin board set and then we add it to our "Word
Wall." This is our modified version of "Letter of the
Week." We talk briefly about the letter and what it's sound is and
what it looks like. However, most of our letter learning happens in the
context of our daily activities and doesn't just focus on one letter, but
on the letters that are most meaningful to the children... For example,
like the letters in their names.
Then we read the
morning message. Our morning message usually informs the students about
our day or asks a question for them to think about and share their responses
with each other. I like to use this as a way to engage the children in
activities that help them learn more about each other. I might ask
questions like, "What is your favorite color?", or "How
many letters are in your name?"
The second half of our week the star student gets to find
the letter bucket for the spotlight letter and we look at all the things
in the bucket that start with that letter. (We have the alphabet buckets
that Lakeshore Learning sells.) Here we are really focusing on
"hearing the sounds" of the letter and discriminating it from
other sounds. Often the children will call an item something different but
entirely correct like in the J bucket their is a Jack-o-Lantern. The
children always call it a pumpkin, and they are right it is a pumpkin, but
then I encourage them to think of another name for it that would have the
"J" sound. They love trying to figure out these new names for
things.
We do a shared writing activity
and I write all the things we have found in the bucket. Then we add other
important words to our list like our classmates names that have that
letter in it and so on.... Later we hang the list next to the appropriate letter
on our word wall.
This is also a time for
sharing, singing song and doing finger-plays.
The Morning Meeting is
practiced in many classrooms across the nation! It is a huge movement to
have more Responsive Classrooms that help children develop a sense of
community.
Learn more about the
Responsive Classroom approach at their website: http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/index.html
|
This is the ultimate
book for learning to do Morning Meetings!
|
A must
have additional resource for using Morning Meeting Greetings.
|
A must
have additional resource for using Morning Meeting Messages.
|
| We
use these pointers all the time for Messages, song charts, and
calendar.
|
Puppets
are great for creating interest and gaining attention during
Morning Meetings.
|
This is
such a fun microphone. I use it to invite the children to Morning
Meetings, Story Time, and for other fun things like celebrating
birthdays!
|
| Great for
writing Morning Messages on, song charts, and classroom graphs.
|
You'll find dozen's of uses for these Easel Clips!
|
I love my big easel, I use it all the time!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
