Morning Meeting Builds Class Culture --- Guest Speaker Sylvia Allan

I had the privilege of hearing Sylvia Allan, principal at Vineyard Elementary, share her feelings on Morning Meeting. She is very passionate about Morning Meeting and was able to see the benefits of it first hand, in her own classroom.

"We have Morning Meeting because we want to know more about each other. We want to share each other's happiness and sorrow. It is easy to criticize something or someone we don't know and easier to empathize with, and understand something or someone we DO know. Our Morning Meeting creates a class community that CARES! Welcome to our class. We hope you feel at home here with us!"

~Sylvia Long

Sylvia Allan has found a routine that works for her and her classroom. Here is how she carries out her morning meetings...

1. Class Creed - Their class creed is like a moto. They say it daily and share experience they have had living it.
2. Greeting (Monday only) - They do some sort of activity where they say each others name and greet each other. 
3. Pledge
4. Memorization - She gives each student a poem to memorize. They are not graded on it. They read it once a day and there is no pressure. With repetition and practice they eventually memorize it. She feels there is a great benefit to exercising the part of your brain that involves memorization.
5. Class Business - They talk about expectations for upcoming activities (vegetables), she gives specific praise for things they are doing well (dessert), and talk about behaviors that weren't corrected even after getting warnings (medicine).
6. News - They discuss current events happening in the word.
7. Share - This is the part where you have the opportunity to really get to know your students. The teacher can offer a share prompt and students can share if they could like. No one has to share. 
8. Class Cheer

Some of the key points from her lecture are:

• Make connections for your kids all through morning meetings. This allows them to see they have things in common with people they might not have realized. It can start new friendships.
• Kids talking together is extremely valuable.
• It is the only 30 minutes of the day where every child is successful, and feels completely happy. 
• No one in morning meeting gets embarrassed - unless they choose to be. 
• You can teach them key concepts without students realizing it because they are having fun. No worksheets. : )
• The teacher should never sit at their desk during Morning Meeting. It is not a lesson planning time. 
• Don't let it become a therapy session for the teacher or the kids. The students should know you personally, but professionally. 

I loved this lecture! I could see how passionate she was about the concept. I loved her idea of having a class creed and the way she did class business. She made me so excited to try morning meeting in my own classroom. I want to be able to create this sense of community. I want my students to feel safe to talk and interact in the classroom. I want them to be able to build lasting friendships, and I think this can be done during Morning Meeting.