The Morning Meeting Book: Greetings

Hello! Thanks for joining me today for the first big section of The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete. Greetings!  Today I will be sharing my own reflections but I'd love to hear from you too! If you haven't read the book you can grab one HERE.  I actually purchased 3 books to get me started on this journey: The Morning Meeting Book, The First 6 Weeks of School, and 80 Morning Meeting ideas.  So I have lots of reading to do this summer!

Let's get started! Here are my reflections on 

Greetings: A Friendly and Respectful Salute

Sets a positive tone for the classroom and the day

We have all had those days where everything felt a little "off" and for the most part the "offness" happened first thing in the morning.  For me it's when we start the day with a bad staff meeting.  I start the day rushed, frustrated, and not ready to be cheerful and happy for my kiddos. Morning meeting may just be the remedy for that!  

Provides a sense of recognition and belonging

I loved this portion of the chapter. It is really important to remember that we have kiddos that fly under the radar. They are the quiet, well behaved ones. They rarely speak in class and as teachers in a room of 24 students we rarely get a chance to have a one on one conversation with them. Of course I make efforts, but there are always those days that I have to ask myself "Was everyone noticed today?" I love that morning meeting makes a set time to notice and that this will aid me in my efforts to get them to speak up for themselves. 

Helps students learn and use each other's name

In March, April,  and even May I am still hearing things like "She did it" (or my favorite....her did it). My teaching partner and I just talked about what we could do to get our kiddos learning each others names earlier in the year. We teach 2 sessions of half day kindergarten so my ultimate goal is for both classes to learn and know each other's names.

Gives practice in offering hospitality

A few years ago we had a teacher at our school who had a designated greeter in their classroom. A few weeks into school our Superintendent visited classrooms and she was promptly greeted with a handshake and a "Welcome to our Classroom" from a exuberant young lady. Everyone heard about it because she was so impressed with the modeling that had been taking place in the classroom. I implemented a "greeter" but it never took off because #1 I didn't model it and #2 The expectation of hospitality had not been established. It takes intentional planning and modeling to make this happen. And LOTS of practice in Kindergarten!

I LOVE the last section of this chapter.  There are so many examples of greetings to try in your classroom.  Of course some of them will work for me in Kindergarten and some we will have to work our way up too or adjust but the ideas are endless.  Once the routine is in place there are so many options!  I went through and highlighted the ones I want to introduce one we get the basic greeting down. I'm all about schedules too so I'm thinking a morning meeting lesson plan template will be in the works soon!  
Thanks for joining me today. I will share the next chapter all about sharing next Tuesday!  Until them, happy summer!