Building Community with Morning Meeting: 69 Activities and Songs for K-5

The school day begins, and with it the frenetic pace of the day. As teachers, we race to accomplish the planned tasks, to meet the goals of the day. Setting aside time each and every day for Morning Meeting, however, doesn’t detract from the overall academic goals of the school day. It supports the academic curriculum. Morning Meeting helps to strengthen the classroom community and make the classroom a safe place to take academic AND social risks. It also provides a space to practice social skills, gather together, share, sing and play as a community.

By starting each day face-to-face, acknowledging and greeting each individual in the community, sharing together, singing together, playing together, this makes a strong statement about the kind of community created in the classroom. It sets the tone and communicates what and who we value in school. We care about each other, we listen to each other, we support each other. Our classroom is a safe learning environment where we work collaboratively and everyone’s opinion matters, and is respected.

In this packet, there are 69 different activities, greetings, and songs, as well as 15 lyric sheets to songs kids love to sing to get you started. This is a great outline and plan for implementing Morning Meeting in a structured, meaningful way, and helping build a community of learners who respect one another.