Morning Meeting is one of my favorite times of the day.
I have a captive audience so it is crucial to get their little brains engaged in learning
because I only have their attention for a short amount of time.
The MOST important reason to come to the carpet according to my students was to see who the Apple of My Eye is going to be! The WHO you say? The Apple of My Eye of course! In my apple themed classroom, that's the helper of the day.
You might call it your Star Student or even your Top Dog, Either way that child does EVERYTHING all day so I only have to keep track of one helper. This is the BEST classroom management change that I have made to save my sanity. The child's name is on The Apple of My Eye chart every day until December and I reveal one letter at a time
We them move onto to our calendar. In pre-k, we start the year off with our weekly calendar. We count the number of days at home and the number of days at school. Dr. Jean's Days of the Week song is a favorite. This is the first step in counting and number recognition which gets us well on our way to counting up to ten.
You can find my weekly calendar HERE along with seasonal pictures for each month and the numbers 1-7 for counting each day.
When we return from Christmas vacation in January, I switch the weekly calendar to a monthly calendar. On the back of each calendar piece, I have the child's name that will be the Apple of My Eye. (I had a morning and afternoon pre-k class last year so there are two names on each card-one red and one blue.)
My pre-kinders would be excited to see what the new cards would be each month, but I soon realized we needed a little bit more. I made a set of monthly calendar cards to include a pattern each month. Upon looking back, I realized that I needed to review the patterns as we moved on so I also built that in. My new calendar schedule looks like this:
We move onto reviewing our schedule for the day. I have a daily schedule with pictures and words and within a few weeks of school, the kids know the typical schedule. It does have to be changed from time to time, and if I forget to turn it back they really let me know!
And to wrap up our quickly moving morning meeting, we incorporate a little literacy. We work on a poem or nursery rhyme each week together. While we practice the poems, we work on letters, sounds, rhyming words, vocabulary and concepts of print. There is so much packed into this short period it amazes me.
The rebus pictures that are used with the poem allow for students to reread it independently after a few days of practicing it chorally. We add it later in the week to their Poetry Journal to practice reciting it, tracking print, illustrating it and connecting it to our language skill.
That about wraps up our morning meeting time. There are always extra activities that are substituted in throughout the year like out weekly journal starting in January, but by that time my pre-kinders are able to sit for a little longer!
