Easing Into Morning Meeting with HeidiSongs

Greeting my students at the door is my favorite part of the day. I love seeing their smiling faces as they unpack their bags and greet me back at the door. I hear lovely things like, 
"I missed you Mrs. Langley".....
"I made this for you Mrs. Langley"......and 
"My dog is missing and we haven't found him Mrs. Langley"...... 

I learn important things about my students through this one simple interaction each day and I wouldn't start my day any other way. I shake their hands and hug them tightly even though it means I will probably get sick... (I suspect that is how I got the cold I am fighting!)

Of course after I spend all of this time greeting and waiting for the SLOW POKES they are all sitting at the rug waiting for me like this.....

Well. Not Exactly. 

We start our day with a solid morning meeting which means we need to go right to the rug but I've been plagued with this problem for years. How do I allow for valuable greeting time at the door, and give my SLOW POKES time (seriously I love them dearly but how long can it take to hang up a backpack?) AND allow for the fast kiddos who go right to the rug and proceed to cause pandemonium because we are taking too long getting there? Can you relate?  

Enter Heidi Songs! We love Heidi in our classroom and use her daily for sight words, alphabet, math, and just plain fun. Parents even email me to ask me who Heidi is because their children request Heidi Songs at home for entertainment. Seriously! 
Well last week I thought enough is enough with kiddos rolling around on the rug while I try to happily greet my children at the door so I started our alphabet video right before they started walking in. 

IT. WAS. MAGIC. 
Magic I tell ya! Everyone went right in and started dancing and singing because it's our FAVORITE and the slow pokes? They hurried it up so they could participate too! Why haven't I thought of this before? 

You can see all of Heidi's DVD's HERE. This is an affiliate link which means I get a small portion if you buy through this link at no additional cost to you. Thanks for supporting my blog! 

My top favorite Heidi DVD's are the Animated Alphabet, Musical Math Volume 1, and Sight Words aligned with Reading Street. The sight words aligned with RS are probably my number one favorite because they go in order and we can sing 2 or 3 songs each week and really cover our Reading Street words. We have great results using these songs. 

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