Morning meetings can be a great way to start the day. In fact, the Northeast Foundation for Children, developers of the widely used Responsive Classroom model, incorporate morning meetings as a regular part of their elementary teaching model. You can read more about their approach in this sample chapter from their publication The Morning Meeting Book.

Here are some ideas on how elementary school teachers use morning meetings:

We all sit on the rug and begin with the Calendar. Students have to state the day of the week, the month and the date. On to weather. We keep track of the daily weather. I use a 100 chart for how many days we have been in school. We have a Morning Message, that I write (most people use a new one every day, I use the same one all week and we do different things with it each day), we read it, I have a child point to the words. then we circle letters, blends, vowels, sight words, fill in missing words or letters, fill in punctuation etc...

The best part is Hopper a stuffed frog. Hopper hops each day from child to child. The rule is only the person holding Hopper can speak. I start the topic of discussion.

We may take time to read a poem or two that the teacher or children select, perhaps act it out, or substitute some new words in key places. Or, some days we may just burst out in a song that someone chooses and then leads. There is always time, too, for listening to a good book - whether it's an old favorite, or something new that relates to the theme.