Greeting students, taking attendance, and listening to the morning announcements are just some of our morning responsibilities. Having a predictable classroom morning routine can really help the mornings start off smoothly.
Having worked in a classroom for over 20 years now, I found a system that has proven to work well for my students and for me.
1. Clear Expectations Displayed
The most important thing is to have the morning expectations displayed on the board before opening the door to students. I can not emphasize this enough.
As students walk in, they should know what they are expected to do.
I write the tasks we need to complete in the order that I expect them to be completed. There is definitely a method to the madness. If everyone is following the same steps, it helps everyone be in sync.
2. Greet the Students at the Door
A few years back, I added greeting the students at the front door as part of our classroom morning routine. I shook each students’ hand before they walked into the classroom. After the first year of doing so, I vowed I would never go back to just having them all rush in.
During the pandemic, we switched it to feet bumps, fist pumps, or elbow pumps, but I still wanted to greet each child before they walked in. I liked how I was able to gauge how each child was feeling as they walked into the classroom.
Making students feel welcomed is the basis for effective classroom management and the building block to a successful classroom community.
I remember a few times when I had to have a student step to the side and wait until everyone was inside. We had a little conversation about what was troubling them, and it made all the difference.
3. Taking Attendance
This seems like an obvious one, doesn’t it? However, until I didn’t make it into a routine, I would sometimes forget all together. I would receive that phone call from the office. As soon as I heard the phone ring, I knew what that call was about.
4. Review Homework Quickly
Homework is a personal preference. Some teachers like it, some do not. Some communities expect for their children to come home with homework, others do not.
If you’re going to give homework, make sure you have a method for checking it or going over it…quickly!
I usually have the students place their homework on their desk, and we quickly go over the answers or any questions about what they may not have understood.
I personally do NOT recommend having a homework bin. A few years back, I was hired at a school as a co-teacher. The teacher I was working with would just have the students drop the homework in a bin as they walked in. What I noticed was that students would just write anything on the paper and turn it in. That was useless, a waste of time, and a waste of resources.
If you’re going to assign homework, make it meaningful… and short.
Morning Work
The list above is written in the order I have found to work well for me and my students. So, what did I include in the tasks I referred to in #1? Here is a sample of how we set it up.
MONDAY:
- Place homework on your desk (this was usually their iReady log & Accelerated Reader log)
- Copy tonight’s homework into your agenda
- Copy the Word of the Week, its part of speech, and its meaning
TUESDAY:
- Place homework on your desk
- Copy tonight’s homework into your agenda
- Complete the Tuesday Daily Sentence Editing Task
- Write two synonyms and two antonyms for the Word of the Week
WEDNESDAY:
- Place homework on your desk
- Copy tonight’s homework into your agenda
- Complete the Wednesday Daily Sentence Editing Task
- Create a sentence for your Word of the Week
THURSDAY:
- Place homework on your desk
- Copy tonight’s homework into your agenda
- Complete the Thursday Daily Sentence Editing Task
- Create an illustration for your Word of the Week and rate your understanding
FRIDAY:
- Place homework on your desk
- Copy tonight’s homework into your agenda
- Complete the Friday Daily Sentence Editing Task
- Study for today’s vocabulary quiz
I hope that you have some ideas that you can implement into your classroom morning routine to help them run smoother.
