April Morning Meeting Ideas for Virtual, In-Person, and Hybrid Teaching (2021)
I’m back with another Morning Meeting blog post, and today I’m sharing my April Morning Meeting ideas for virtual, in-person, and hybrid teaching.
Morning Meeting is a great time to set the tone for the rest of the day, and it allows teachers to focus on classroom community and relationship-building.
For today’s blog post, I’m sharing ideas on how to conduct Morning Meeting in the month of April – whether you’re teaching in your classroom, online, or a hybrid / hyflex model.
In today’s blog post…
We’ll be looking at (1) April Morning Meeting Slides and (2) 2021 April Holiday Morning Meeting Ideas! You can check out my slides for the entire month of April here.
Specifically, I’ll be following the Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting structure (Greeting, Share, Activity, Message) as a framework for what an effective and engaging Morning Meeting can look like. Responsive Classroom is an amazing resource for a student-centered, SEL approach to teaching.
Morning Meeting Slides
If you are new to my blog, I’ll let you in on a secret that I’ve been sharing with readers for a few months now…
My top tip for Morning Meeting is to create a very clear structure for students.
Creating predictability and routine during Morning Meeting is helpful in centering students for the remainder of the day. I recommend that teachers use a slides presentation to frame the meeting (more on that in the next section!). I’ve found that this strategy can be helpful in guiding and engaging students.
If you are teaching in-person, you can project the slides on your board for students in the classroom to see. If you are teaching on Zoom / Google Meet / Microsoft Teams, you can easily screenshare the slides for students at home to see.
At the very start of Morning Meeting, while you wait for your students to arrive, I recommend projecting or screensharing a cheery image with the day of the week on it. It is a wonderful way to set the tone for the meeting.
Greeting
Once your students have entered your classroom , you can begin by saying something like, “Good morning students! Today is a wonderful Wednesday! It is Wednesday April 7, 2021. Grey is our morning leader. Grey, how will we greet the class today?”
It seems like younger students tend to opt for the same greetings. As the teacher, you can also choose one for them (or give them a couple of choices)! If you’re looking for specific greeting examples, I share some in the video below.
Share
Once you’ve completed the Morning Greeting, you will move onto the share portion of the Morning Meeting.
I’ve found that shares can be a great way to support students from a social emotional perspective. Of course, you can also share sillier or more creative prompts too.
On Thoughtful Thursday, I have found that students enjoy reflecting on quotes or thought-provoking questions. The activity below says, “Today is Thoughtful Thursday! What act of kindness will you do today? Share your idea with the class.”
I like this prompt because it gets students thinking about how they can practice kindness that day.
You can also ask students questions like: “What is your favorite lunch food?” and “Share a time when someone made you smile.”
Activity
As a teacher, I love the share portion of Morning Meeting, and I also love seeing how students light up during the activity portion.
It can be tricky to come up with a new activity every single day, so I try to think of categories and activities that build on each other.
One game that tends to be a hit with students is called “Stand Up.” You can mix this up each time you play by giving students new prompts…
“Stand up if you love dessert.”
“Stand up if you love the smell of flowers.”
“Stand up if you like watching movies.”
“Stand up if you like playing soccer.”
You can also use Morning Meeting Activity as a time to incorporate brain breaks and mindful movement. The activity below says “It’s time to stretch! Stretch your arms over your head. Now stretch your arms out wide.”
Morning Message
Lastly, it’s time for the Morning Message.
In my opinion, Morning Message works best when it is unique to your class. I’m not in your classroom. I don’t know your students. And so ultimately, you are the expert when it comes to the Morning Message!
I do have some ideas to help you get started. You can:
- Outline the schedule for the rest of the morning / day
- Have students think about a goal they have for the day
- Revisit a topic from yesterday
- Set expectations or agreements for the day
2021 April Holiday Morning Meetings
In addition to sharing slides with students, I also highly recommend incorporating holidays into your Morning Meetings. In April, there are a number of different holidays you might want to share with students!
- April Fools Day
- Easter
- National Unicorn Day
- Encourage a Young Writer Day
- Earth Day
- National Skipping Day
- Arbor Day
On “Encourage a Young Writer Day,” you can ask students to share… “Where is your favorite place to write? At your desk? Outside? In a comfortable chair?”
On Earth Day, you can ask students to share ideas on how kids can help the environment. You can even have them make a chant about reducing, reusing, and recycling!
Do you like these slides?
I created an ENTIRE MONTH’S worth of pre-made, ready-to-go (but still editable!) Morning Meeting Slides to use with your students in April. If you like these slides and activity ideas, you can check out my product here.
Thank you!
If you’re new here, hi! I’m Maddie. I’m an edtech coach and a K-5 STEM teacher, but Morning Meeting has quickly become my thing online. I’ve shared videos with tips and tricks and I’ve created a bunch of products too. Check it out and let me know what you think!
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