Morning Meeting is a Responsive Classroom teaching tool to help start each day, build a strong sense of community, and set children up for success, both socially and academically. Each morning, students and teachers gather together in a circle for twenty minutes and interact with one another during four purposeful components: Greeting, Sharing, Group Activity, and Morning Message. Morning Meeting serve multiple purposes, including setting a tone for respectful and engaged learning in a climate of trust, merging academic, social and emotional learning, and meeting students’ needs for belonging, significance and fun.

In Year 3, teachers recently used Morning Meeting to reinforce the value of trust. Students began learning about trust, putting your confidence in someone you can depend on, with Carlos Silva during well-being classes. Year 3 teachers continued this discussion during Morning Meeting sessions, reinforcing the value in their Morning Message, Group Activity, and Sharing. One of the Group Activities was a “trust walk”. This activity was used to demonstrate the meaning of trust, but also as a way to build trust, as blindfolded students relied on instructions given to them in order to avoid various obstacles. After the Group Activity, students shared what they were thinking, doing, and if they trusted their partner and why. Next, students read the morning message, “Yesterday we spoke and shared about trust. Today we will share some more. Think about our list of reasons we created about why we know we can trust someone. Now, ask yourself, “Am I trustworthy?” If yes, what makes you trustworthy?” Students discussed what made them trustworthy. This discussion was then extended into Language Arts where students created books about trust.  

Morning Meeting is a chance for teachers to introduce and reinforce critical academic and social-emotional skills for students. Bringing well-being concepts as well as Language Arts concepts into Morning Meeting can give students extra opportunities to discuss and reflect on their experiences while interacting with their peers. Morning Meeting has become one of the most important parts of the day.