Are you a morning person, or not so much? Whether we like them or not, mornings set the tone for the day. A lazy, sluggish start usually translates into a blah, unproductive pace that’s hard to shake. It’s true for me as an adult, and it’s especially true for our kiddos. When we start our day with a plan and focus, we feel energized and motivated!
My favorite way to start a school day for my primary students is with a digital morning meeting.
What is a morning meeting?
A morning meeting is your chance to set the tone for your school day and connect with your students. It usually consists of a greeting, some brief guided learning activities, sharing time for your students, and a preview of the day’s agenda.
We know kids crave routine. Kids look to us for predictability and stability, so let’s do our best to provide that for them!
I’ve adapted my regular classroom routine into a meaningful digital format. The goal remains the same: to check in with our students, set the tone for the day, and offer a degree of normalcy and predictability. With digital slides, morning meetings can be planned for the week and displayed for the whole class to see. They can also be used on individual devices for kids who are away from the classroom.
What’s included in the digital morning meeting slides?
With this bundle, you’ll receive TWELVE themes, so you can choose a new one for each month! Each theme has the same slides and includes moveable pieces, so students can interact and follow along on their own device.
Here’s the breakdown of each morning meeting slide:
- A note from the teacher: Say hello, give a word of encouragement, and set a positive tone for the day. If you are teaching virtually this year, you may want to pop in a photo of yourself every so often to help students make more of a connection with you.
- How are you? Each day, ask your students how they’re feeling. Happy, sad, excited, worried? You can create a graph to display the results, showing the overall mood for your class.
- Weather report: Teach weather terms with fun visuals!
- Day of the week: Yesterday was, Today is, and Tomorrow will be.
- Monthly calendar: Highlight the current day of the month.
- Days in school: Keep a running total of the school days, with space for a visual representation of hundreds, tens, and ones.
- Today’s number: Make numbers and math skills a part of every morning with these two quick review slides. Each slide includes space for the numerals, the spelling word, a visual representation, tally marks, and a simple equation.
- Warm-up: Encourage movement with stretching exercises—so important with all the screen time right now!
- Share time: Each day, choose a student to share with the class. You can ask them to share on specific topics or treat this as a show-and-tell time, bringing whatever they’re interested in at the moment.
- On the menu: Give a brief overview of your learning activities for the day so your students know what to expect. This morning, we will… This afternoon, we will…
BONUS: A fully customizable slide! You can add in any additional topics or lessons you’d like to include for your class.
How do morning meetings benefit our students?
There are so many benefits to morning meetings!
- Your connection with students is strengthened.
- Students have something reliable and consistent to look forward to each day.
- They help foster a sense of belonging and community.
- You can sneak in short reviews, mini lessons, and other reinforcement of your classroom objectives. Kids don’t even realize they’re learning math skills as they count out the number of school days! 🙂
- Morning meetings motivate students to show up on time and ready to learn.
Have you found success with digital morning meetings?
I’ve found that this simple daily routine makes a huge difference—for me, and for my students!
