Morning Meetings in Field

As I was reading through the Morning Meeting Packet, it was like I had a lightbulb click on in my head! I instantly thought of my last semester in field with my little first grade class. 

After morning bell-work, Mrs. N. would call her students to the back of the room to sit on the rug. She'd start out by saying, "Does anyone have something they'd like to share with the class?" After a handful of students shared, they moved onto the daily calendar routine. As one student lead the class with the calendar, they would add another day to how many days of school they had completed within their 'place value counter' chart. In unison, they discussed what day of the week yesterday was, what today was, and what day of the week tomorrow will be. Lastly, they looked at the weather outside and recorded it on the weather chart. Mrs. N. also did a daily morning message with words spelled wrong, grammatical errors, and a note of what was going on that day. The class would correct the errors and read the message aloud with Mrs. N. 

  

Although Mrs. N.'s Morning Meeting didn't follow Kriete's Morning Meeting Model, I feel she still formulated her own little Morning Meeting with the students each day. I didn't realize this is what Mrs. N. was doing and I didn't fully understand why she did what she did until I read more about Morning Meetings in the packet.

Morning Meetings:

• Builds Classroom Community
• Reinforces Social & Academic Skills
• Helps develop Cooperation, Assertiveness, Responsibility, Empathy & Self-Control

Oh, how wonderful Morning Meetings are!