Morning Message

Many moons ago, I posted about how I did my morning message each day.  You can read that post here.  My messages have evolved (like everything else in my classroom!!) over the years.  Today, I am going to show you how I conduct the message this year.

Sample message with skill review at the bottom

Students engaged with slates during the whole message

Sample messages with skill review at the bottoms

The kids have specials right away, and after they get back, they know to get their slates, rags, and markers and come to the rug for the message.

I never have my message written ahead of time; instead, I write it as we go, and really model good handwriting, spacing, and phonetic spelling.  I leave blanks for sight words, word family words, and phonics chunk words for students to spell on their slates.  TIP: I draw the number of lines to represent the number of letters in the word I want them to spell to help students (esp. my struggling readers and writers).  I will also always cue, "It's on the word wall, under the w and on a red card" to help them find the word if it's a tricky one we don't use often.

I sometimes make my message shared, and draw sticks to have students come up and fill in the blanks for me after everyone's had a chance to do it on their slates.  This isn't always the easiest with 25 kids...it gets crammed on our rug!

I typically write 3-5 sentences and then use the space at the bottom to review a skill we've covered previously or are currently working on.  Sometimes it is a reading skill and sometimes it is a math skill.

After we've finished, we will echo read and then choral read.  Finally, I will have my helper of the day come up and select a pointer and read a sentence for us to echo.  Then they choose another student, and so on...

Lots of good aspects of teaching have come and gone over the years, but this is one thing that I believe is worth gold.  Morning message is a great chance to review (and even introduce) many, many skills!

xo
Megan