The Perfect Morning in your Classroom
How to have a calm, grounding morning
My Favorite Part of the Day
As a third-grade teacher, the morning was my favorite part of the day. My students came in calmly, spoke quietly, and the whole room was relaxed. I drank my coffee without any panic, and these first moments grounded us all before the day started. In this blog, I will tell you everything I did to achieve this energy every day.
To have a calm morning routine in your classroom, it is very important to set high expectations for your students. Be very clear about exactly how the morning should look and feel. Give examples and none examples on how students should come into the classroom and what they should do. In my class, I allowed the students to talk quietly and come up to me for a chat. If the talking got out of hand, I would have them work quietly until we started morning meeting.
I also had a color-in chart. This was a seasonal full-class chart that I used to manage behavior. When the students met expectations, I would color in one of the pictures. When the whole chart was colored in, we would have a big party or fun activity. A quiet morning was almost always on my color-in chart. My students would always be very excited and happy to get a color-in, and this helped create that calm energy in the morning.
Here are some additional expectations/routines you may want to have for the morning:
Where students put their homework from the night before
Writing in their planners
A morning work routine
Early finisher activities
A routine around unpacking their backpacks
A check-in or good morning with the teacher
A social-emotional check-in
Set Clear Expectations
Color-in Chart
Post your Schedule & Important Information
This seems obvious! We all know from our college courses that the schedule needs to be up for our students. However, I added so much information to my board that helped keep our morning calm! Anytime a student asked me a question about our day, I added it to the board. This helped them gain autonomy; they did not need to ask me to find out information about our day. It also helped me maintain that calm environment because I was not met with 20 questions at 8 a.m.!
Here are some things you can add to your board:
Lunch choices or menu
A timer, so students know when Morning Meeting will start
The morning meeting question, so they can think of an answer
Whether recess will be indoor or outdoor
The topics of any assemblies or special events
What the snack is that day
What the homework is that day
For my board, I always used classroomscreen. It has so many different options and is so easy to incorporate. It is free, very aesthetic, and easy to use throughout the day. I also always put up a lo-fi video on classroomscreen because it helps maintain the calm energy in the classroom.
Classroom Screen
This is the absolute most important thing that you need to do to maintain a calm morning. It’s completely normal to, at times, need to prepare things at the last minute. However, you want to do your very best to try to maintain a calming energy. If you are speaking loudly, clearly stressed, and running around the room to get things together for your day, then you cannot expect your students to be calm and quiet. Even if you have some last-minute fires to put out in the morning, take a breath. Things will get done, and your students will pick up on your calm energy. The absolute worst, most chaotic days I had as a teacher were the days when I was stressed in the morning and running around my classroom trying to get things done. It felt as if my students picked up on my energy, and they carried that with them all day.
That being said, some teachers prefer a louder, more energetic classroom, and that is completely valid! I’m not here to invalidate that. I am only here to provide tips for teachers like me, who need a calm and grounding morning with their students.
Be Calm Yourself
Having a consistent morning work routine can help you feel calm and prepared in the morning. It is also important to provide morning work that takes more than 5 minutes for the students to complete. Before making a full-year spiral set of morning work, I was always scrambling to find something that would take long enough and also relate to what they were learning. If you are interested in the set I created, click the link here! I hope it can help you maintain calm in your classroom.
Full Year Morning Work Set