Tips & Tricks to an Effective Morning Message
A morning message is designed to welcome students into the classroom and give them information about what to do or what to expect that day. What is the first thing that you read when you wake up? Do you check your email, go on social media, watch the news, read a book?
I notice that what I read and take in those first few moments of the day greatly influence my energy and attitude going into the day. If I read something happy and uplifting, I am getting up with a positive outlook. The goal of a morning message is that our students enter our classroom reading a warm message that gets them feeling positive and excited about the day ahead.
The morning message is the fourth component of a Responsive Classroom Morning Meeting. The other parts are the greeting, sharing, and the activity. The graphic below shows the order and how they flow together to facilitate a cohesive, beautiful, and effective morning meeting!
What is the Morning Message?
When students walk into the classroom, you should station yourself at the door saying hello and greeting each of them as they walk in. Once they are inside, a morning message greets the students. The message can be written on chart paper, the white board, or a projected computer board. It should be the students’ morning routine that they come in and read it.
The message can give students information about an upcoming lesson that day, ask them to interact and respond to something, or give them a direction of what to do in that moment. Format the morning message as a formal letter to model appropriate speech and language skills. Although students read the message first thing, it is the fourth component in Morning Meeting because the closure of the circle time is spent discussing the message.
Depending on grade level and teacher style, discussion of the morning message may look very different. For example:
- If the message gives information about the upcoming day- the teacher can read it with the class and check if anyone has any questions
- If the message asks students to respond to a questions such as “What is your favorite breakfast food?”- the class can review and discuss the answers
- If the message told students to turn in their math homework up front, the teacher can verify that everyone did that
- If the message used a new science vocabulary word, the teacher should lead a discussion in figuring out what that word means
The book, Morning Meeting Messages, is a terrific starting place to see grade appropriate examples and get tons of ideas for creative ways to use an effective morning message.
Importance of the Morning Message
- welcomes students to the room with a consistent routine
- can convey a message to all students first thing in the morning
- helps when a substitute is present to have the presence of the teacher letter
- beneficial way to integrate academics
- tool for teacher to gather information or feedback from the class
- provides a transition at the end of morning meeting back into the academic schedule
- creates an environment for an interactive morning meeting
- models appropriate writing and punctuation
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Tips & Tricks for an Effective Morning Message
- I ALWAYS write the message at the end of the day before I leave school. You never know what can happen in the morning and don’t want to be rushing to write it while students are walking in!
- Preplan your messages for the week to help with being able to write them quickly at the end of the day
- Have sub messages pre-written somewhere the sub can access and hang it up so that you can still provide that consistency and give your students encouragement to have a great day
- Have fun with it! Draw little pictures or use fun colors, if you enjoy writing it then the students will enjoy engaging with it
I have Morning Meeting preplanned for the whole year and the message templates are already included ready to go! This should make it easy peasy for you to type in the message and have them ready in advance to show up on your smart board.
More Morning Meeting Ideas
I hope that these resources give you an idea about where to start in planning your morning meetings!
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