Does anyone else run out of ideas for morning meeting activities? Keeping things fresh and your students engaged is a balancing act! You don’t want to reuse the same morning meeting activities too often but using a rotation of activities is helpful to avoid having to explain a fresh activity every day.
I compiled 9 morning meeting activities that you can take and use right away. Adding these to your morning meeting rotation will help increase the variety. Enjoy!
Something’s Not Quite Right
One student will volunteer as the leader to make something “not quite right” in the class. Everyone else closes their eyes and the leader will change something in the class (be as silent as possible). When the leader is ready he or she will return to the carpet and tell everyone to open their eyes. Then, you will guess as to what the leader has changed.
Vocabulary Pictionary
A student leader will have a vocabulary word whispered in their ear. They will draw a picture on the whiteboard to try to get you to guess the word.
Guess the Voice
One student stands in the circle blindfolded. The teacher will tap someone on the shoulder who will make an animal noise. The blindfolded student has three guesses to figure out who made the sound.
This or That
Read two options out loud, like “read a book or watch a movie”. When you say each option point to a side of the room. Students will move to the side of the classroom that matches the choice they prefer.
Conductor
One student leaves the room. A conductor is chosen. The student comes back in the room and sits in the middle. The conductor decides on an action that all students replicate (like clapping). The conductor can change the action at any time and everyone must follow. The student in the middle must figure out who the conductor is.
Improv
Two students start in the circle and start acting out a simple scene, such as eating at a restaurant, doing homework together 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. The two in the center now act out a different scene that makes sense for the positions that they are starting in. (scenarios can be called out by the teacher to make this easier)
Quick Groupings
Students will quickly form and reform groups. 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 leaves the room. Once they are out of sight, a different classmate hides somewhere in the classroom. When the first student returns to the class, they must try to figure out who is hiding.
Guess Who/What
A student sits back to the whiteboard. A word is written on the board like 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.
NO MORE PLANNING FOR MORNING MEETING
Morning meeting has a ton of benefits and is often a well-loved part of the classroom morning routine.
But there’s one part that isn’t a crowd-pleaser… all of the planning!
To keep it fresh and engaging, I felt like I was forever on the hunt for new ideas for morning meeting. It takes some serious time to plan all four parts (greeting, sharing, activity and morning message) and I prefer to use my time on the weekends sipping coffee and reading books.
You too?
I took one for the team and planned every month of our morning meetings. No more hunting for morning meeting activities, sharing prompts, or greetings. They are ready to go!
In the Morning Meeting Slides Year Long Bundle, the greeting, sharing and group activity is already planned for you. All that’s left for you to do is to type in your morning message.
Check out the Morning Meeting Slides Year Long Bundle to have your morning meetings planned for the entire year.
Further Reading
If you enjoyed this blog post, check out my other blog posts with morning meeting ideas:
