Student Contributor: P. Solis
Morning talk name can be used every morning, when students come in, they are asked to have a seat in a circle on the floor. Then one by one they go around saying what their name is or what they would like to get called for the day. This gives the teacher a sense of how the student is feeling and what they might have going on.
Morning talk name should be used every morning as students walk in through the door, they should be asked to go have a seat on the floor and create a circle. Then one by one they should go around and say what they would like to get addressed for, it can be their name, or it can also be a title. When we do this, we want to make sure everyone is listening so that they can hear pronunciation. This can be a really great took for those students who have names that can be difficult to pronounce. Along with that this can be a great tool for those students whose parents not understand the importance of an education. I watched this tool being used at a low-income school and many students wanted to get called “student” then their first name and when I asked why they said it was because no one at home believed that school was important. This tool can give you a sense of what your students go through at home and their expectations at home.
This tool would fall under the preventative phase because it would be something that we would be doing every morning so that we meet the needs of our students throughout the day. We would use this tool to understand how our students are feeling that morning and maybe some hardships that they might have gone through the night before. By doing this at the begging of the class we can hopefully tell which kids might have had a harsh morning or afternoon, and we can learn how to approach them differently then we might have any other day. By using this it also gives them a reinforcer and boosts up their self-confident which can only help them throughout the day.
More Information –
Tool Source: Teacher at Lake Hills Elementary School (Dual Language Teacher)
Morning Meeting (Preventative)
Kindergarten/ 16 Students/ Suburban Area
Every morning, my students form a circle and begin their morning talk. I got to lead our last morning talk in which I had students say “ good morning friends, my name is _________ and my favorite food is ____________. Morning talk is very easy to prepare for as students will always state their name, but the topics will change. Some topics we have done in our classroom are favorite hobby, favorite color, or what they did over the weekend. This is the best tool to use to get to know your students better whether it’s their personal likes or more about their home- life. Students enjoy morning meeting and will let you know if you were to skip it! One success I noticed during this tool is how many similarities there are in the classroom! Every student knows their role in the classroom during morning meeting. They get really excited when its their turn to speak! As for adjustments during morning meeting, I will make sure to change the topics every morning! I love morning meeting and will for sure do it in my own classroom!
Morning Talk
I used this tool in my placement classroom (5th graders, 25 students, title one school) starting around the third week I was there. We did it once a week on the days I was there for the full day. This tool was simple to prepare, teach, and use. One of the successes with this tool was the ability to get a feeling for how each of my students were feeling that day. The students caught on very quickly to the routine of this tool. One way to improve on this tool could be to include a fun question prompt for students to answer every morning along with their names. This would create a fun icebreaker for the day and further get a sense for how each student is feeling. All in all this tool helped create a further sense of community and care in my classroom!
My placement is in a third grade classroom. There are a total of 18 students in the classroom. My placement would be considered an urban area. This tool is fairly easy to use. The only preparation you need is to find a variety of different topics to include in the morning talk. At first, it seems easy to come up with topics to talk about such as favorite foods, animals, hobbits, sports, etc., but as days pass you will struggle to look for ideas. It is as easy as searching on google and looking up a list of “get to know you” questions. This is a great tool where everyone gets to learn new things about everyone. The students really enjoyed having some time to ourselves and starting off the morning in an engaging way before getting into the curriculum. Students understood their roles for the tool quickly. We would go around the circle and say our names and the answer to the prompt. They were all respectful when listening to their peers and only speaking when it was their turn. At the beginning some students were too shy to answer. But once we got the ball rolling and made it a routine, they got comfortable and were quick to answer and very happy to share their responses. I don’t think there are any adjustments necessary to make the classroom management tool better. It was a great tool that I will definitely be incorporating in my future classroom.