Instructing Ideas

Putting Together a Preschool Morning Meeting

If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you will recall how we like to break our circle times up, so that instead of just having one, we have quite a few. (If you are not familiar with this, you can read about it in my circle time post.)

I like to think of our morning meeting as another circle time. (I really should be calling it group time, as our circle is now more like an oval.)

Two summers ago I took an online class from Fairy Dust Teaching and was intrigued by a photo of a classroom that used small wooden stools for the children to sit on during group time. I shared it with my staff and they were in love with the idea. We presented the idea to our committee and they loved them, too. The parents pay for part of the stool and fundraising covers the rest. Each child has her own stool that stays with her the entire time she is at our preschool. When she graduates, she takes the stool home as a keepsake of her preschool years.

Before we open the doors to greet our preschoolers, we set out the stools on our group time carpet and place their name sticks on top. We place a basket of books in the middle.

When the preschoolers arrive, they take their name stick and place it in their envelope which is on the wall.  This is a visual to let us know who is here.

They then get a book from the basket to look at while waiting for their classmates to arrive.

Let me compare this to how it used to be. The preschoolers would arrive and we’d immediately start centers time. There would be a mix of energy and there was not near as much focus as there is now. I didn’t realize this until we implemented our morning meeting.

What now happens is that even if a child arrives full of energy (and it happens every single day), when they walk into the doorway, they find a calm environment.

Related: Energetic Preschoolers? 5 Important Tips for a Calmer Classroom

Starting our Preschool Morning Meeting

When it’s time to start our morning meeting, the children put their books either under their stools (so they can look at them again later), or in the basket.

We then sing our good morning song.

(Tune: If You’re Happy and You Know It)

Good morning, good morning, how are you?

Good morning, good morning, how are you?

It’s such a special day, I’m glad you came to learn and play!

Good morning, good morning, how are you?

Each day we have a class helper. That child’s name is placed on a pocket chart at the entrance of our classroom. A teacher will hold up the child’s name and call out each letter until someone figures out who it is.

Related: How to Have a Preschool Class Helper

Introducing Our Learning Centers

We then share what is happening in each of our learning centers. We talk about the materials and how we will use them. If we are introducing new tools, we might pass them around while showing how they are handled.

We might demonstrate something that is related to that week’s theme.

We will pass items around to touch and explore.

All of these tie into that week’s theme, making what we will be doing that day more meaningful.

We then invite the children to go work and play. And it’s amazing how they all go off into different areas, excited to explore!

Do you have a morning meeting? 

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