Morning meeting during field

For my final field experience, I was placed in a 4th grade classroom at Timpanogos Elementary in Provo.
My cooperating teacher, Mr. Evans, is a UVU graduate.
And guess what?
He does morning meetings.
His morning meetings involve a share and then either a game or a greeting.
They are only 10 minutes long, but I can see the good that comes from them.
I think his morning meetings have helped with classroom unity and they especially helped the students with their social skills.
On the first day of my three weeks, all of the students were lined up outside the classroom. Mr. Evans explained to them that I was visiting and that they should greet me before entering the classroom.
Holy cow was I am impressed! Every single student shook my hand while making eye contact with me. They introduced themselves and told me good morning! Some of them even asked me how I was doing.
I know that those skills came from morning meeting.

I feel so grateful that I am placed in a class where I will be able to continue doing morning meeting when I student teach in January. I'm excited to see what I come up with and the results that will come from doing it.

sylvia long and jentri youd

Two teachers.
Two very different methods of implementing morning meeting.
Both inspiring.

Sylvia Long. Wow is she amazing! She came and spoke to our class at the beginning of the semester. Her morning meeting looks like this:
Class creed
Greeting (Monday only)
Pledge
Memorization
Class business (vegetables, dessert, and medicine)
News
Share
Class Cheer

Jentri Youd. He came to our class about a week ago. He is full of energy that is absolutely contagious  His morning meeting looks a little something like this:
Class game
Share
Class cheer (which involves a goal for that day)

I LOVED listening to Sylvia Long. I could listen to her all day. She told stories that made me laugh so hard, and stories that brought me to tears. I spent at least an hour retelling all her stories to my husband that night. I also loved listening to Jentri Youd. You can just tell that his students have so much fun in his classroom and that even the shyest student eventually opens up.

Both of these teachers have implemented morning meeting styles that differ from the original, but both of these teachers were successful because they made it their own. I love what Mr. Youd said: "Do what works best for you. Be your own teacher!"

I'm not exactly sure what my morning meeting will look like, but I definitely want a class creed. I'm thinking about having a list of short class creeds that change each month. I like the idea of addressing class business. (Vegetables are the every day stuff, desserts are the things the students did well, and the medicine is if there are every any problems that need to be discussed.) I will definitely want the students to share in some way and we will always play a game, because those are my favorite. :)

Class Activity: Victims and Sleuths

In my differentiation class, we were assigned to read an article about a teacher named Sharon, who utilized Morning Meetings every single day in her 3rd grade classroom. Sharon is convinced that Morning Meetings are the reason behind her students' success.

The article describes one of the class activities that Sharon used in her classroom and because I want to remember the activity in the near future (or far future), I have recorded it on this here blog.

        Victims and Sleuths

In this activity, the teacher secretly designates one or more of the students as a "murderer." All of the students scan the circle  making eye contact with one another. The "murderer" winks at his or her victim, who then must fall over. At any time during the scanning, a student may guess the identity of the murderer  If the student guesses correctly, the murderer is "done for." The game continues until the last "murderer" is caught.

Results: Students love to be creative and dramatic in their death scenes, and they developed new vocabulary to avoid using violent terms, eventually coming up with "perpetrator" rather than "murderer." The activity also promoted conflict resolution skills among the children as they tried to solve the problem of honesty in the game that is, falling over when winked at and refraining from pretending to be the perpetrator!


Source: "Like Being at the Breakfast table:" The Power of Classroom Morning Meeting by Elizabeth Bandy and Sharon Ketts

My own thoughts: I love this idea for a game! I bet you could do a different version where you send one student out in the hall. Everyone knows who the murderer(s) is except for that one student. Then they stand in the middle of the circle and try and figure out who the murder is. It would be really fun to let them dress up as a detective. And they win a certificate if they can solve the crime!

Differentiation so far...

So far, I have been to my Differentiation class once.
So far, I have loved it!

Dr. Peterson is my professor and instead of standing up in front of the class to teach us about morning meetings (which would have been understandable), she conducted one herself, engaging each of us students and giving us a feel of what it's like to participate in a morning meeting (which is way more fun and memorable). Dr. Peterson said, "If you don't actually do it, then you won't get your students to do it."

What is a morning meeting you may ask.

A morning meeting is done at the very beginning of class. It is a powerful tool to create classroom community and is between 15-30 minutes. Morning meetings include 4 components:

The greeting can be simple or complex. The teacher may toss a ball to a student and say, "Good morning {insert name here}" and then that student would say good morning back. This would be repeated until every student has been greeted by name. There are many different ways to jazz up the greeting. 

The sharing portion can be a lightening share where each students shares with a one word answer or short phrase, or a couple students may be picked to share something {the teacher picks the topic} and the student can share for a couple minutes. After the student shares they would turn to the class and say, "I'm ready for questions/comments." Then the sharer picks someone who is raising their hand to ask a question or share a comment. After three people have been chosen, the student would then say, "Thank you that was three." This is a great way for students to practice their social skills and their listening skills. 

The group activity involves everyone. If there is any risk-taking on the student's end, then the teacher would need to discuss beforehand why the task at hand may be difficult. For example, if you play an activity where only one student is the center of attention and needs to accomplish a task, then you would discuss why that task may be difficult so the other students don't think it is okay to laugh at them if they have a hard time completing the task. 

The news & announcements needs to be interactive. You may have a big piece of paper hanging up at the beginning of class asking the students to answer a question, share an idea, solve a problem, or gather data. When it comes time to do news & announcements, you read the chart together as a class and then discuss what the students have written, answered, tallied, etc. This is also a great time to share any changes in the schedule or announce something important. It is also a great tool when transitioning from coming into class and then getting to work on the next task at hand. 

After participating in a successful morning meeting, our professor asked us what this had to do with differentiation and why it might be important. Why spend so much time on learning about them? We answered that everyone is different and morning meetings help with classroom community and using their differences as strengths, rather than weaknesses. 

I personally love the idea of morning meetings. I'm excited to learn more about them and I'm excited to learn more about differentiation and how I can become a more successful teacher with students from different backgrounds.