Team J's Second Grade Fun: Morning Meeting - Part 5

I'm back for Part 5 of my Morning Meeting series. Click below if you missed any of my past blog posts in this series..

Morning Message is the last component of Morning Meeting. Morning Message often is academic and provides all students a chance to respond to a written message. Morning Message often is academic. At the beginning of the year, the messages are a little more community building and get to know you. I use Morning Message as a way to review content already taught and also to preview new content and see what their background knowledge is.

We have rolling white boards and I choose to use that for the message. Before the students come in each morning, I write the message for the day on the board. When school begins, once students have finished unpacking, they go over to the board and respond to the message. Often I have students respond by writing their answer with a white board marker. I also have had students respond with a sticky note that I've left on their desk. I find the sticky note works better for longer answers and for solving longer math problems. This way they have time to solve at their seat as opposed to solving on the board with a line of students behind them.

Once students have responded to the message and are sitting in the circle Morning Meeting begins. We go through the first three parts - greeting, share, activity - and discuss the message last. I typically have a student read the message for the day and then call on students to share answers that either they wrote or that they see on the board. Sometimes I will read through all the answers so everyone's is heard. It depends on the time we have each day. I do not have students write their name by the answer so if a student is wrong their is no finger pointing. If an answer is incorrect, we will talk about it and work together as a class to fix it. I also will extend Morning Message and ask further questions about the message.

Some teachers choose to write more of a letter to their students. I have especially seen this in the younger grades. I prefer a quick question that way everyone can respond and be heard.

Here are some ideas for Morning Message...

Beginning of the Year:

What do you want to learn in 2nd grade?
What is your favorite _____? (anything works here as a get to know you)
What was your favorite part of the first day?
What is bucketfilling?
What are kind words we can use in the classroom?

Reading:

Who is your favorite book character?
Write a cause and effect.
I use a lot of questions that refer to our story for the week and the skill we are focusing on.
Which character would you be friends with?

Phonics:

Write a short vowel word.
Write a long vowel word.
Write a word with the /oa/ sound (or whatever sound you're focusing on).

Math:

Pose an addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problem.
Provide enough numbers for your whole class to have one to respond to and have them