Structured Morning Meeting

Categories: Academics | Classroom Instruction

I am so excited to talk about and share my classroom’s structured morning meeting!

My structured morning meeting is easily my favorite part of my day. During my structured morning meeting, my class focuses on skills such as calendar, weather, academic, and social skills. I make this time of day hands-on and engaging for my students and I have seen growth like no other this school year!

In my classroom, my morning meeting is done as a whole group activity. This area of my classroom acts as our classroom “hub”. What I love about this area is my students know what to expect when they walk through the door after each outdoor transition because this is where we always gather. My students start their day here, meet here after recess and lunch, and meet here at the end of the school day. Throughout the day, I project everything using Google Slides onto our whiteboard.

My Google Slides are from Engaging Early Learners and Simply Special Ed and then customized by me.

Pro Tip: I love The Autism Helper Visual Calendar Worksheets because they help keep students’ hands busy and decrease off-task behaviors during morning meeting time. This takes a little extra prep and hard work at the beginning of the year, but I always say, “You have to work hard at first, so you don’t have to work hard all year.” It’s worth it.

Greetings and Expectations

Morning meeting expectations for my classroom.

During the first round of morning meeting, I go over our classroom rules & expectations, my students greet their classmates and teachers, and we talk about who is at school and who is at home for the day. This can easily be differentiated for nonverbal students using The Autism Helper’s Complimenting and Greeting Visuals.

Calendar

Next, we do the daily calendar (I use Starfall Calendar to make it interactive and engaging).

Months of the Year

After we discuss our calendar, we get more interactive. Students help me figure out what last month was, this month is, and what next month will be, then we watch a fun months of the year video. I then have a student help me put the months of the year in order.

Days of the Week

Next, students help me figure out what yesterday was, today is, and what tomorrow will be. We then watch a fun and engaging days of the week movement video. Finally, a student helps me put the days of the week in order.

What I love about these activities is that I am able to include my non-verbal students in these activities as well as incorporate students who use AAC devices. All of my students are able to participate by matching!

Weather

My students and I always have conversations about the weather. This has taken some major consistency for students to understand. My students and I also watch a video about the weather during our morning meeting. I love the Visual Temperature Bar Graph as a way to interactively and visually teach students about temperature as well.

Split it Up

The first/then visual I use to split up my morning meeting.

I like to pack A LOT into my morning meeting. Knowing that it’s too much for my students to do at one time, I break my morning meeting into chunks. After the weather, I stop our morning meeting to take a break and focus on some centers. I keep this image projected on our whiteboard so my students know what we are doing. We continue our morning meeting after recess.

Some of my visual icons are from Simply Special Ed.

Letter of the Week

After recess, my students return to our “hub” where we discuss our Letter of the Week. Here, we talk about the letter name, letter sound, and words that have that letter in them. I make it interactive by having my students search for photos to include on our slide. They absolutely love this part! We also watch a video about the letter of the week.

Number of the Week

Similar to our letter of the week, we have a number of the week. We work on counting 1:1 correspondence, addition, and skip counting and watch a counting video. Throughout the year, I do numbers 1-100 and then move on to skip counting and larger numbers such as 1,000.

Sight Word and Core Word of the Week

I love doing a core word of the week that focuses on sight words as well as core language words. My students practice their words by using the word in a sentence or picking a sentence that goes with the word. We also watch an interactive sight word video and an interactive core word video.

After our “of the week” series, my students finish their morning centers. My students have learned SO MUCH this year from our morning meeting and I am so happy that we do these activities every day.

If you have any questions about my morning meeting activities or if you need help with ideas for your classroom, please comment and I will get back to you. Thanks for reading!