If you are a teacher to a group of young, bubbly kids, you must plan a morning routine.
Deciding upon suitable morning meeting activities for your kindergarten students not only helps create a stronger, friendlier student-teacher relationship, but it also makes your mornings super jolly and fun.
There are a variety of fun things you can do with your kids, which varies from classroom to classroom as well. Energizing already active kids is no big deal, but gaining the attention of some sleepy heads is definitely a task. And that is what we are exactly here for: to help you build a great morning schedule!
Great Morning Meeting Activities
Let us now look into some great, fun, and cool morning meeting activities you can add to your morning schedule:
A morning hello or greeting is one of the best ways to bond with your students and that too at a personal level.
These can include anything from handshakes, voice greetings to cool gestures – basically, any fun thing you can come up with. The wonderful part is that these can be unique to each student to make them feel even more special, loved, and welcomed.
Doing this not only brings a smile to everyone’s face, but it also makes your kids look forward to meeting you each morning.
The Covid-19 situation may prevent you from physical interaction with your students, but there are tons of hand gestures and voice greetings you can introduce to make mornings even more fun. You can read up even further regarding this activity on PrimaryDelightTeaching.com.
The clothespin game is a simple but fun activity to boost those sleepy brain cells.
As a teacher, you gather all your students in one large circle. Each student closes his/her eyes while you place a clothespin on one of them. This should be visible but also somewhere interesting. You can place the peg on their shoulders, clothes, shoes, dress, or even pants.
Once the peg is placed, the students open up their eyes while staying in position and look around for the peg. Whoever finds it must sit down without saying a word and let the others keep playing.
The activity goes on until there is one or few kids left that are unable to detect the peg.
This fun activity can also be found on yourtherapysource.com, where they even suggest playing with an even smaller clothespin! How fun!
Kids love to frolic and prance about, which makes it obvious that they will love a good dance routine. You may define some steps to particular lyrics or a song or simply choose to keep it freestyle. It is all up to you!
As their teacher, you can even gear yourself up by enjoying a light, hearty dance with your students. This will surely boost the energy level of the entire classroom!
You can also pick a particular song or poem for each day or keep it consistent so that your students eventually learn it word to word. These poems can also be something that teaches children about a particular subject or topic.
This combination of light exercise and informational poems/songs was a suggestion we found on TheBlueBrainTeacher.com.
You should check it out for other cool ideas as well!
Almost everyone knows about this game; it’s old but gold!
In fact, there’s a high possibility that you might have played this in your classroom when you were a child as well! All you have to do is simply pick one kid to be ‘Simon’ or you could, as the teacher, be Simon yourself.
The students simply have to follow each command that starts with the words: ‘Simon says’ and ignore the others. Whoever fails to follow the rules gets kicked out of the game.
And, the best part is that you get to combine exercise, focus, attention, and fun all into one game! Simply make your kids feel active and even more energetic by the end of the session.
The game is a great and fun way to prepare your kids for learning periods that will commence once the morning routine is done. For further insight, do visit playtivities.com.
Another smaller activity that can be made part of this game is to pick the winner as the next ‘Simon.’ This will make students even more excited to play this game.
This is definitely, a tricky one. It is a unique activity we found on AWordOnThird.com.
In the people to people game, the students are initially divided into pairs. They can switch up their partners later in the game when the teacher calls out ‘people to people.’
The game is a fun way to enable interaction and motivate kids to better identify body parts.
Each pair of students is supposed to follow the teacher’s instructions. When she calls out ‘people to people,’ they are supposed to clap hands either with their partner or choose a new one. When the teacher calls out ‘head to shoulder’ or ‘hip to hip,’ the students must then link those body parts.
This allows the teacher to ask the students to link up a variety of body parts and create various commands, which in turn helps them identify body parts better.
Mimicking is easily one of the best activities you can do with your kids.
This mimicry game has the potential to allow your kids to learn each other’s names whilst boosting confidence levels. This is because each child has to speak up their name in a silly, unique gesture before the class can mimic and respond.
As the class gathers together in the morning, all you need to do is simply ask everyone to chant out, ‘Say your name, and when you do, we will say it back to you!’ The round begins with a student in one corner and ends up at the student in the other corner, basically covering the entire class.
Each child then speaks up their name, while the class mimics their speaking pattern and gestures.
This not only helps children to learn each other’s names but also makes it a silly, fun interaction.
You can find out more about this and other morning greeting activities on ResponsiveClassroom.com.
A boost to your children’s vocabulary is a perfect morning meeting activity if you want your kids to learn new words and better understand their meanings.
Every student in the classroom gets called up one by one, and a word is whispered into their ears.
They then use chalk or marker to draw up clues leading to the word on the whiteboard/blackboard. They are not allowed to use hand gestures or speak out clues.
Students then raise their hands to make guesses and the kid who accurately guesses the word wins.
You can also then make the entire classroom spell the word out and describe its meaning. It is also possible to take the activity further by choosing to create sentences using the given word.
Storytelling is a fun activity all on its own, but what if you take it one step further?
You can do this by involving alphabets. This not only makes storytelling super fun, but it simultaneously allows students to revise the correct alphabetical order.
The first student begins his/her story with the letter ‘A,’ while the second one adds a second sentence that starts with ‘B.’ The pattern continues until every student has had their turn or when you run out of alphabets.
Another interesting thing that comes with this activity is that it enables kids to let their imagination run wild and think ahead before their turn comes along.
This great idea is part of a PDF book that has tons of morning meeting activities inside it.
Rock, paper, and scissors is a classic game that can be played whenever and wherever.
Adding this fun game to your classroom morning routine can help boost adrenaline and nurture healthy competition. Rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. Use a fist gesture for rock, a palm gesture for paper, and a V gesture for scissors.
Divide the classroom into pairs of twos or threes and let them play rock, paper, scissors in groups. The winner from each group then gets partnered with a winner from another group. The game continues until one kid is left standing as the ultimate winner.
You can also participate as a teacher and play along only if you are not worried about the embarrassment of losing!
Gifts or candy can also be used to make the game even more fun! We found this cool activity on MomLifeMadeEasy.com.
Reading sessions is most probably the easiest thing that comes to any teacher’s mind and is a very good learning tool.
Reading is the simplest thing you can add to a morning meeting and could be something you already have.
You can either pick students to read out a random paragraph from any book or pick a particular story that the students might enjoy. The reading level can be made harder to introduce more words that the kids can add to their vocabulary.
Once a book or story is complete, a discussion session can be included. In this session, the kids can tell you whether they liked the story, or you could ask them questions to see whether they paid attention in class.
Don’t forget to check out JenKimbrell.com for more tips and tricks to help you define that perfect morning schedule as a kindergarten teacher.
What Supplies Are Needed For These Activities?
Most activities we mentioned above do not require any special supplies. But there are some things you would want to have at hand if you choose to add something to your routine from our list.
Almost every classroom has its own books and boards, but you would want to make sure you have those and informational placards ready as required. It is also a great idea to have a sound system to play music, songs, stories, or poems right from your smartphone if you intend to have an activity that demands it. Clothespins, markers, paper, stationery, and other small objects that can be made part of any game should also be ready before class begins.
Last but not least, to make any activity even more challenging and fun, you can bring along candy, toys, or other gifts that can be handed out to winners once a game ends. This makes kids look even more forward to morning meetings. They engage in healthy competition, are more eager to win, and participate with full concentration once they have something to look forward to.
Conclusion
Conclusively, whatever activities you choose to incorporate into your classroom morning routine, they are sure to have a great impact. Our list gives you a good idea of what you can add, but you can always research further or switch up activities to keep your class from getting boring.
Simply put, the activities bring your class to life and make the kids look forward to each day. They also simultaneously boost concentration and initiate healthy competition and interaction while also enabling them to learn new words. They are also able to learn gestures and can be taught about different topics.
This part of the article has been created to help you answer a few basic questions that most teachers might have. Keep reading to see if you had something similar in mind.
How Do You Make a Morning Meeting Fun?
Everyone loves games, and almost anyone can participate in a gaming session. Teachers themselves can also take part to make the students feel more at ease and enjoy any gaming activity even more.
To make your morning sessions fun, you can introduce any game that your kids seem to respond happily to. You can experiment and play various games to see which one your class likes best and see if it is suited to their age group. Simon says rock-paper-scissors, musical chairs, or clothespin game; new or old, any game can be added to make mornings super fun!
What Are The Components of a Morning Meeting?
Teachers usually divide a morning meeting into five basic categories. These include saying hello/greeting your teacher plus fellow students, a daily message/reminder, reading, sharing thoughts, and a fun activity or game.
Hello, can be said in various ways. The class can greet their teacher and each other in unison or individually use gestures and voice communication to greet each other good morning. A daily message or reminder can be anything that the teacher feels should be addressed or reminded to students at the beginning of the day.
Reading and sharing about your life helps students interact and boosts communication skills. Lastly, a fun activity helps students look forward to being in the classroom and makes mornings less dull and boring.
Looking for other kindergarten activities? Here is a list of our available articles:
Hi, I'm Amanda! Welcome to Education Outside! Im passionate about educating young minds and helping parents/teachers by providing easy and effective teaching resources. Check out all of my teaching resources on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
