Getting the day started
A morning meeting can be such a perfect way to start each day. It gives you time to greet your students, determine their mood and get some basic skills in. The meeting sets the tone for the rest of the day. Here are some ways you can spend making morning meetings more engaging for your students.
Allow Your Students to “Talk”
One of the key pieces of my morning meeting time is allowing my students to be a true part of it. This means that I’m not doing all the talking. My students greet each other every single day. Sometimes this is done through conversation and sometimes it is done with communication cards. Some of my students use a computer during this time to talk with their peers. I help them use phrases that are appropriate for peer conversation, working social skills during this time. By allowing them to directly lead part of the meeting I am making morning meetings more engaging. This is also a great time to talk about emotions and how they are feeling.
Calendars and Such
One way to make morning meetings more engaging is to work on real world skills. For my students this means teaching calendars, date and time. There is plenty of vocabulary that can be worked into the circle. I usually have words that we are focusing on for the week and we review those each day so the students hear them at different times. Sometimes my students will go over personal information that we have been working on. This may mean repeating a phone number or their birthdate. My students favorite part is when we play songs about upcoming holidays or special events.
Organization
Morning meetings are a great time to organize your day and make sure that your students know what is coming throughout the day. I know you guys get it when I say that schedule changes can throw off an entire week, not just a day. I love to use our time together in the mornings to review our schedule for the day. I will over exaggerate anything that is not our norm. This doesn’t mean that one or more of my students won’t still struggle, but I have found that it does cut down on the number of meltdowns. We also use this time to review the lunch menu for the day and make any choices with our students.
Get Moving!
The best way to make morning meetings more engaging is to get your students moving! I will take some time during my planning to find some cute YouTube videos with some dance moves or even some simple yoga. This is how we finish every morning meeting. By this point my students have been sitting and focusing for about 15 to 20 minutes and they need to get some wiggles out before moving on to some work time.
Learn More
If you want to know more about making morning meetings more engaging, check out my recent podcast. You will find logistical tips and even more ideas on things to do during the morning meeting.
Wishlist Goodies
I wanted to share a few of my favorite wishlist items with you guys. I’m trying to really focus on self-care this year and one way I do that is ending my night with some reading that has nothing to do with school. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah is next on my list! Over in the tech world I am loving this small tripod. It is perfect for all kinds of uses in the classroom. And now that school is back in full swing, I am using my digital planner for special education teachers more than ever! This stylus and tablet stand are lifesavers.
New Resources
There are so many new resources in my TpT Store but I am beyond excited to tell you about my growing bundles. I am already using these in my classroom and my students are loving them. I have created one for Social Studies and Science. Both cover multiple skills in fun, hands-on ways that your special education students will connect with and learn.
