Inspire Meaningful Morning Meeting Sharing Time

You have probably heard “sharing is caring” before right? Morning Meeting sharing time fosters empathy, caring, connections, and meaningful relationships.

Morning Meeting consists of four parts that go together to make a 10- 15 minute meaningful experience. This routine enhances your students’ social, emotional, and academically abilities. The first part is the greeting, then morning meeting sharing, followed by an activity and finally the morning message. Click each part to read more about it!

What can morning meeting sharing look like?

There are many formats that morning meeting sharing can take because it should fit your teaching style and your students’ communication style. I will explain various ways to implement this. After that, I will go through how I personally implement sharing in my classroom with any grade level.

All About Me Sharing: Goal- promote importance of every student and gain insight into their lives. In this format, assign students a day of the week to be their weekly sharing day. Depending on your class size this can be about 5-6 students a day. During morning meeting sharing time, give each of these students the floor to share whatever has been going on in their lives lately! Although this requires expectation teaching and practice to not get long wacky stories, it can create beautiful moments!
- After the student is done sharing they say, “I am ready for questions and comments.” At that time, students will raise their hands. The sharer will call on two people to ask their question and they will respond. The power and confidence this provides in students when others care about their trip to Target and their visit to their aunt’s house is magical. Asking meaningful related questions and giving appropriate comments also requires modeling and teaching but the students grasp it very quickly! Time estimate 2-5 minutes

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Round Robin Sharing: Goal- give every student a voice.
This format is when every student in the circle takes turns answering the provided question. Depending on the question given, this could take a lot of time. The questions that I pose to my class are ones that involve a short one or two word answer. The questions do not ask for an explanation. I teach students to listen closely to each other’s answers. They can plan to ask their friend later if they want to know more. Teach and practice the specific procedures for this format to create a quick answering routine. Time estimate: 1-3 minutes

Combination Sharing: Goal- students all feel comfortable sharing.
This format combines All About Me Sharing with Round Robin Sharing. If students do not have anything new they want to or feel comfortable sharing on their sharing day, you can have a sharing prompt question posted as an alternative choice. I always allow students to skip if they do not want to share. I find a few of my shy students over the years did this every week. By providing them a structured question to respond to, they would get used to sharing. Eventually, they would share a story of their own! Time estimate: 2-5 minutes

Partner Sharing: Goal- make a connection.
This format is when students partner up to answer a question or share on a given topic. Teach students to take turns sharing, show active listening during their partners turn, and share in a limited time. It is often helpful to give 30 seconds to each partner to share. Tell students when it is time to switch. Another tip is to have a rotating schedule of partners for a quick visual when you tell students to partner up. Time estimate- 2-4 minutes (due to transitioning into partners and back to the circle, variable on how long you give each student to talk)

Small Group Sharing: Goal- make connections, practice participating in a group without risk.
This format of sharing time is when students are put in small groups to answer a question or respond to a given topic. Give each student a time limit to share. This ensures that each person gets adequate attention and opportunity to voice their answers. The teacher should dictate when to rotate to the next person. Time estimate- 2-4 minutes (due to transitioning into groups and back to the circle, variable on how long you give each student to talk and number of students per group)

Journal Writing Sharing: Goal- thinking deeper about answers.
This morning meeting sharing format is when students are given the sharing prompt ahead of time. This is given either as part of their morning message for morning work or at the end of the previous day during dismissal. Students write a thoughtful personal/ private answer in a journal prior to morning meeting. During morning meeting, students can choose if they would like to share.
- This helps to build confidence with sharing because students are not put on the spot to think of answers immediately. The downside is that students may have a lot more to say and that may take more time. Teachers could do a random way of selecting a few students to share rather than allowing all to share. This also create a nice opportunity for teachers to read student responses and learn more about them. Time estimate- 2-8 minutes (depends on how many students share and how much they have to say!)

How do I structure morning meeting sharing?

In the beginning of the year while I am teaching routines, expectations, and procedures of morning meeting (and well everything!) I always start with Round Robin Sharing. I find this is the easiest format to teach students right away. It also is a great get to know you tool for those beginning weeks. I also use this time to share about myself as students are sharing to help them get to know me!

After that, I move to an All About Me Sharing format. This transition is always a little bumpy as students gain the freedom to talk about whatever they want. However, with a week or two of modeling, intentional praise of meeting expectations, and practicing, these few minutes become a highlight of my day. It is a time where I sit back and am amazed at the relationships blooming right in front of me. Some of the questions my second graders thought to ask each other this year were so thoughtful and kind. It was incredible!

How does morning meeting sharing teach social emotional skills to my class?

Morning meeting sharing provides a platform for each student to feel important and valued as they share something personal about themselves.
Students learn about each other and make authentic connections (without any academic ability stigma) to form relationships and cultivate a successful classroom community.
Students practice speaking and listening standards in a way that relates to life skills and their interests rather than content. This builds confidence in these abilities when they need to be implemented into academic subjects.
Students develop empathy and learn to not judge people with different experiences/ opinions.
Hearing various stories from different students helps each student develop a bank of ways to respond to others’ news and feelings. Students learn to respond to sad news in an empathetic, kind manner. They also learn to ask insightful questions about something they learn is important to a peer, etc.

I hope that this helps you to imagine how sharing will work in your classroom! Email me or instagram message me at any time with questions. I am happy to help you make morning meeting the best it can be in your classroom. Look for some sharing products below you can use in your classroom today!