Morning Meeting in a Responsive Classroom!

In undergrad, I spent a lot of time in an AMAZING first grade classroom that practiced Responsive Classroom. If you haven't heard of Responsive Classroom, I highly recommend it- Get a book about it, read a blog about it, anything that gets you excited about this super amazing classroom management approach!

One of the parts I like best about Responsive Classroom is its Morning Meeting component. My kids LOVE Morning Meeting - It's the time of day they look forward to most! I know there are lots of incarnations of Morning Meeting, but here's what works for me -- meaning it's engaging, variable, and most importantly, NO prep required!

We meet in a circle on the carpet. I choose a new morning meeting leader every day, which is probably their favorite part! Every day they come in and check our Helper of the Day chalkboard. That student is our morning meeting leader, line leader, and the only student allowed to sit in the chair that day! They LOVE this privilege!

Our morning meeting has 4 parts:

1. Greeting The morning meeting leader chooses the greeting of the day- hugs, high fives, handshakes, or fist bumps. We pass the greeting around the circle, and when it gets to their turn they must greet the people next to them by name: "Good morning, _____." This is part of teaching the Boys' Town Social Skills that many students, especially kids in my Title 1, economically-disadvantaged school, are lacking.

2. Sharing I allow 3 people to share some sort of news every day. The morning meeting leader chooses who will share that day, and then each "sharer" chooses 3 people to ask them questions about their news. This is another social skill - showing interest in others' lives - and it also intentionally builds a caring community in our classroom!

3. Activity We have a cup of popsicle sticks that each name a different morning meeting activity. Each activity takes about 5-10 minutes and you can read about them in a separate blog post here!

4. Morning Message Every day I write a morning message on our easel, updating them on what they can look forward to that day, and we do a choral read led by the morning meeting leader.  

How do you run your morning meeting? I'm always looking for ways to intentionally build a classroom community, and I've found morning meeting is an awesome tool to do that!