Try these quick morning meeting activities to engage and build community with your teams.
For both students and teachers, morning meeting is the ideal way to start the day. That’s because morning meeting is a consistent start to every day, develops meaningful relationships, builds a positive classroom community, and provides a venue to work on social-emotional skills.
You can immediately use the nine morning meeting activities I’ve put together. You can increase variety by rotating these into your morning meetings. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
10 Morning Meeting Activities
Here are 10 morning meeting activities you can choose.
Something’s Not Quite Right
One student will volunteer as the leader to make something “not quite right” in the class. The leader will change something in the class while the rest of the class closes their eyes (remain as silent as possible). The leader will signal for everyone to open their eyes and then return to the carpet when they are all ready. Then, you will guess as to what the leader has changed.
Vocabulary Pictionary
A word from the vocabulary will be whispered in the ear of a student leader. To elicit your guess, they will draw a picture on the whiteboard.
Guess the Voice
One student is standing in the circle while wearing a blindfold. The instructor will tap someone on the shoulder while an animal noise is being made. Three guesses are given to the blindfolded student to identify the source of the sound.
This Or That
Read two options out loud, like “read a book or watch a movie”. Point to a particular area of the room when you say each choice. The side of the classroom that best fits their preference will be where the students move.
Conductor
One student adjourns the space. The conductor is selected. The student comes back in the room and sits in the middle. The conductor selects a movement that each student imitates (like clapping). Everyone must comply if the conductor changes the action. The middle student needs to identify the conductor.
Improv
Beginning in a circle, two students begin to act out a straightforward scene, such as eating at a restaurant, doing homework at school, etc. At any point, the next leader will call out “freeze” and the two people freeze while the leader takes the place of one of the actors by putting his/her body in the exact same position. In keeping with their starting positions, the two in the middle now perform a different scene. (scenarios can be called out by the teacher to make this easier)
Quick Groupings
Students will form and break up groups quickly. The leader says “freeze” and gives directions for the next formations, such as “Groups of three”. The leader says “freeze” again and gives a different direction like: “Get into groups where everyone is wearing something the same colour pants”.
Who’s Missing?
One student adjourns the space. Another student hides somewhere in the classroom after the first two have vanished from view. They have to try to discover who is hiding when the first student returns to class.
Guess Who/What
Towards the whiteboard, a student reclines. On the board, a word is written, such as “apple,” “lunch bag,” etc. The student with their back to the board can ask ten yes or no questions like “Am I a person?”, “Am I a type of food?” They must try to guess “what they are” based on the yes or no answers to their questions.
Journal and Share
As students enter the room, use a journal question to prompt their responses. After that, spend some time talking about that question with your partners or the entire group.
How to Run Morning Meeting?
There are many different ways to run morning meeting. What works best for you and your students will ultimately depend on you. Here are some basic suggestions for getting started with a morning meeting in your classroom:
- Be Consistent. The time you hold your morning meeting each day should be determined and maintained. You should allow 5 to 20 minutes for your morning meetings. What you do and how in-depth you want your discussions to be will determine how many activities you engage in.
- Plan Activities. Your morning meeting should go according to a general plan. This could, for instance, involve discussing a significant SEL subject. For several activity suggestions you can try in your classroom, continue reading.
- Start With Greetings. Everyday greetings are significant. Make it a point to have the students say something to each other every day (more on this below!).
- Integrate social-emotional learning. There are constantly ways to incorporate SEL skills into your morning meetings. Make the most of these opportunities by bringing them up and highlighting them along the way! You can read more about my simple 5-step process for integrating SEL into every morning meeting.
- Be Flexible. Planning is crucial, without a doubt. Having said that, be prepared to adapt to your students’ needs that day. It’s acceptable to put your plans on hold and concentrate first on a persistent problem in your class.
- Have Fun! Most importantly, enjoy yourselves together. Keep in mind that now is a good time to build community. Make it important and enjoyable because it will serve as the cornerstone for everything difficult.
Also Read: How to Host a Community Meeting?
Final Thoughts on Morning Meeting Activities
Most of these morning meeting activities can be tweaked to work with little kids or teens.
While some can be completed in a single meeting, others may require several, they are all interesting and enjoyable!
Read More: Prayer Meeting
FAQs
What Are the 4 Components of Morning Meeting?
Four components: greeting, sharing, group activity, and morning message.
How Do You Engage Students in the Morning?
Options include verbal greetings, hugs, handshakes and high-fives. This can give students a sense of greater agency in the learning environment, which in turn can increase their level of learning confidence.