Differentiation in the Classroom

Morning Meetings 

Morning meetings are a great way to get to know your class and the for the students to get to know each other. You can do morning meetings every day or every other day depending on your schedule.

Here is a way that morning meetings can go:

Class Creed- This could be a class or school song they sing everyday. 

Greeting-  It is important to at least have a part of your morning meeting be active. This could be having the students stand up and shake hands with someone simply telling them hi. Or you could post a question on the board saying for example, "Hi my name is ______. For Halloween I ____________." Then that person shakes someone else's hand.

Pledge- With the pledge it is important for the students to know what they are saying.

Memorization- This could be students memorizing a poem or piece of text. (Do not stress on your students to memorize it. Let them know that this is just for fun. It is good for them to realize that without even practicing they can memorize, just by saying it everyday. It increases their ability to remember.)

Class Business- Vegetables: things that are just good for us like what we are going to be doing that day, expectations for that day.
Desserts: Something very specific they did very well the day before. "I noticed this person being kind."
Medicine: It will taste really bad but it will fix the problem. This can be used to fix a problem by having a class discussion.
Literary Term: Learn one term a day, then review them all.
Quote: Fun quote for the students and teacher to refer back to. Keep these quotes up in the classroom.

News- Tell the students the agenda for the day and any important news. (Let the children know that the world is not a horrible place.)

Share- We only share stories that will help us get to know you. We never embarrass anyone at home, school, or play. We only share a snap shot not the whole story.

Class Cheer- Every week let a different group of students come up with their own cheer and teach it to the class. (Teacher comes up with one the first week.)




Idea adapted from Sylvia Long