Are morning 
meetings useful 
in the 
classroom? 
 
Jennifer Davies and Gabija Brazinskaite  

What are morning meetings?  

As the title suggests, Morning Meetings tend to occur as

the first task of the day. Zhang and Quinn then further
state that morning meetings are essential not just for daily
tasks but they also allow time for academic catch-up
using real-life examples and scenarios without the
burdens of planning. (Zhang et al., 2017) Morning
Meetings are a time where fundamental academic
knowledge can be added to, however these meetings are
also a time that can be used to further establish positive
relationships as well as a positive classroom culture
within cross-curricular academic learning.

“The time you 

spend building a 
positive 
classroom culture 
is never time 
wasted - it is 
time invested.”  
 Can morning meetings foster effective  Can morning meetings promote 
relationships?  learning Self-regulation?

One teacher organizes her Morning Meeting in a way that
allows students to greet one another and tell personal
stories which then in turn
builds trust and respect in
the classroom. (Gardner,
2012). Not only does the
trust and respect get built
within peers, but
teacher-student
relationships as well.
Students are able to see
that their teacher cares and wants to take the time to listen
to her students rather than students always listening to her.
When students are given the time to build relationships and
feel comfortable in their classrooms, they are more likely to
be open to participate and make mistakes through learning.
Another teacher explained that his students, “…grappled
with ideas freely, without fear of embarrassment over
“wrong” answers as they negotiated common
understandings,” (Boyd et al., 2012, pp. 11). When students
walk into your classroom in the morning, you want them to
come engaged and ready to learn but you also want to start
and continue to foster effective relationships throughout the
school year.
A lot of early childhood education consists of young
students learning how to explore the world not only
in an academic sense but in general. It is hard
enough to regulate feelings and do emotional
check-ins as an adult,
let alone a young
student starting
school. In order to be
able to teach young
students how to
regulate and
understand their
emotions throughout a
school day,
self-regulation is
important. Morning
Meetings could be the perfect way to aid your
students with learning about emotions and
expressing their own emotions. For example, Asking
students how they are feeling and/or sharing those
feelings through writing, picture or orally. By talking
about emotions with your students it allows them to
see that it is in fact ok to be mad or sad. Then
teaching them how to handle those feelings allows
students to learn self-regulation.

Can morning meetings contribute to cross-curricular academic use?

Through research we have been able to find numerous different ideas in which Morning Meetings can be used in
cross-curricular ways without even necessarily being academically based. For example, one teacher instilled
something called a “Reader Log Talk'' into his classroom. What
this was is students read books at home, they filled out a log
and then a few students each day shared their book log with the
teacher and classmates. (Boyd et al., 2012) During this
teacher’s morning meetings, each student was included and
able to share their knowledge. In addition, students were able to
ask questions which in turn helped students develop those oral
literacy skills alongside reading. (Boyd et al., 2012)

In a lot of elementary levels, health curriculums discuss things

like friendship as well as being good caring people, how to
respect others, and how to understand their own emotions. Learning how to listen to one another and respond
accordingly in morning meetings would therefore be able to transfer to the health curriculum.

In science students often have to collaborate and work together on things in the classroom which is why another
cross curricular option is teaching science skills through morning meetings. Since morning meetings are
collaborative in nature students can learn skills such as how to listen to others, which is ultimately a skill that
students need to have during science class. (Gardner, 2012) During science class the teacher can link back to
morning meetings by telling students they need to use the same skills they learned then with science class. In
addition, science content is not actually being taught but the skills to better succeed in science class are being
practiced by students. (Gardner, 2012)
 
 
 

How would we set up Morning Meetings in our future classrooms? 

You could begin the school day by asking students how they feel that morning. You could allow students to share
in any way they would like: they could have a little journal where they are able to write their feelings out, they could
draw an image of how they are feeling, you could do a sharing circle, the options are endless and you could switch
up the way you do this each day. The neat thing about
this, is that students will still be hitting some literacy
objectives. Visuals, speaking and writing are all in the
english language arts curriculum.

Above that, you are able to connect curriculum to

relationship building which is what matters most. For
example if you are sharing and a student feels angry that
day, you could spend a few moments doing breathing
exercises as a class in order to show that student how we
can regulate emotions in a positive way and you are not
excluding that student. Instead, you make it a class wide
activity where all students learn something that will help
them with their day to day self-regulation. Just as some research shows, it is not necessary to have this Morning
Meeting time be a scripted and planned time of the day, going with the flow and examining student needs matters
more. (Boyd et al., 2012)

“WIN time” or “whatever I need” could easily be implemented into the daily routine of
morning meetings for students. (Laurie McIntosh and Carly Goruk) For example, once a
week first thing in the morning, students have different stations they are able to choose
from. Stations could include things such as alone time, group chat with the teacher, chat
with a friend, yoga station, or book reading station. With your guidance as a teacher, the
options are endless for “WIN
time.” It can be as much or as
little guided by you as needed,
depending on the group of
students you are teaching.

There are countless different ideas that can be used for

Morning Meetings depending on what you are trying to
achieve. The Morning Meetings can be as much or as
little academically rigid as needed. Maybe some Morning
Meetings would better be used as catch up time for
literacy and or numeracy? Those are some decisions that
you will have to make as a teacher, however
understanding how many different things you can do with Morning Meetings is vital. Lastly, remember that morning
meetings do not have to be scripted or planned lessons. Go with the flow and see where the meeting takes you
and your class because the most important part of morning meetings is creating a positive classroom culture for
your students.
 
 
 
 
 
 ​ eferences: 
R
 
Gardner, C. (September 2012). Morning Meeting and Science- A Winning Combination.  
Science and Children, 50(1)​, 60-64.​ ​https://www.jstor.org/stable/43176228   
 
Horsch, P., Chen, J., & Nelson, D. (1999). Rules and Rituals: Tools for Creating 
A Respectful, Caring Learning Community. The Phi Delta Kappan, 81(3), 
223-227. ​https://www.jstor.org/stable/20439625   
 
Smyntek-Gworek, S., & Boyd, M. P. (2012). Morning Meetings in a Third Grade  
Classroom: Literacy and Learning [Standards]. ​The Journal of Classroom  
Interaction​, ​47​(2), 4-12.​https://www.jstor.org/stable/43858876 
 
Zhang, C., & Quinn, M. F. (2017). Promoting Early Writing Skills Through Morning  
Meeting Routines: Guidelines for Best Practices. ​Early Childhood Education  
Journal​, ​46​(5) 547-556.  
 
doi:​http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.uleth.ca/10.1007/s10643-017-0886-2  
 
 
​ P
​ icture References:  
 
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/07/key-relationships-content-marketing-str
ategy/ 
 
http://literacyandcrosscurriculum.blogspot.com/2016/09/benefits-of-integration_29.htm
l 
 
https://proudtobeprimary.com/self-regulation-skills/ 
 
http://psychlearningcurve.org/creative-teaching-and-teaching-creativity-how-to-foster
-creativity-in-the-classroom/ 
 
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/WIN-Whatever-I-Need-3881345 
 
https://study.com/blog/why-you-need-morning-meetings-in-your-classroom.html 
 
https://momentousinstitute.org/blog/morning-meeting