What does your morning meeting look like? If you're like me, it probably includes your calendar. Our morning calendar routine starts our day off right and I look forward to it as much as the students do!
Starting Our Day With Morning Meeting
If you want to get off to a good start in your classroom, the best way is with a morning meeting. It's a great way to make connections and build a good classroom community.
At my school, the students have a staggered start for about the first 30 minutes of the day. Once all of the students have arrived we're ready to start our day. We do that by meeting on the carpet for our Morning Meeting.
We begin with the school announcements and the pledge of allegiance.
Morning Calendar Routine
After we say the pledge, we begin each day with our morning calendar routine. I have done calendar time with my students every day for my entire career and I would never give it up. I really feel like I get a lot of “bang for my buck” out of this little 15 minutes of time.
When I taught kindergarten I had my calendar on a huge bulletin board at the front of the room. It looked like this:
I loved this calendar area in my room but it took up a lot of space in my classroom. When I moved to first grade I no longer had this much wall space to devote to my daily calendar.
Our Google Slides Morning Calendar
What was I going to do? I loved my calendar activities and didn't want to give them up! But the only bulletin board I had in my new room was about 4X4 and that wasn't large enough.
The good news was that in my new room I had an interactive smart board! Woah! We've entered the 21st century! I decided to do my morning calendar routine in a new updated way and so I created a google slides digital calendar.
Our morning calendar routine is super slick and easy using this digital calendar on our interactive whiteboard. Students are able to move the calendar dates into place and do the work themselves. There's a link to our good morning song on the first slide and we sing that each day. It's such a happy, positive way to begin our morning.
Monthly Calendar Patterns
Our calendar includes draggable numbers with a simple pattern that increases in difficulty each month. We start the year with this simple ABAB pattern with a cute apple theme. You can't see them in the photo but there are draggable pieces over to the side that students can drag onto the calendar.
We also have buttons on the side of our calendar that are linked to our favorite songs on YouTube for things like our good morning song, the days of the week, counting by fives, and more.
Counting The Days In School
Next, we keep track of how many days we've been in school on our digital calendar. I choose one student to write or type the number each day and then a student drags the correct ones, tens, and hundreds onto the slide. This is a quick way to practice place value each day.
We also keep track of the days in tally marks and count the number of days we've been in school. We can either type the numbers or just have the students write them directly on the board with an Expo marker. It's great practice!
Checking The Temperature And Weather
Next up on our digital calendar is the daily temperature and dress our Weather Bear. Students can drag the temperature and weather bear's clothing onto the slide. The students always love picking out a new outfit for Weather Bear each day!
Practice Telling Time and Graphing
On the next slide, we practice graphing with our question of the day. I will post a question on this slide and then students can come up to the calendar and drag a button over to the graph. We also practice telling time each day on this slide as well.
Shape Of The Week
Next, we practice our shape of the week. I choose one shape for us to learn about each week. I begin with the 2-dimensional shapes like triangles, circles, and squares,
We learn how many vertices and faces the shape has and if it's an open or closed shape. These are all part of our math standards. Eventually, we move on to 3-dimensional shapes and learn about cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres.
Counting Coins
When it's time to introduce money, I add this slide to our morning calendar routine. I simply type or write an amount under the piggy bank and then students can drag coins to match the amount. We change the amount each day. Students practice seeing how many different ways they can make the amount of money shown in the box.
Morning Message
I like to write a morning message to my students each day. Sometimes it's a simple message like the one shown in the picture. Other times, I will make mistakes on purpose and have students find the mistakes and fix them. It's a great way to get a little spelling or grammar into our day in a short little lesson.
My students and I love this morning calendar routine. It takes about 15 minutes each day and packs a lot of math into a small amount of time. It's a great routine for your face-to-face classroom but also works great for distance learning!
Are you ready to go digital with your daily calendar? Click here to check it out.
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Need more ideas for classroom routines? Check out this post:
Love how you have adjusted activity.
Congratulations on starting your blog! Great ideas for morning routines!