The Morning Meeting Book

This resource is an excellent buy. After cutting morning meeting out of my classroom routines, I realized that it's not what I should have done. I wish that I had this book in the beginning of the year to help me with the morning meeting. There are so many wonderful ideas and activities in this book. If you get this book, I would also highly recommend Morning Meeting, Afternoon Wrap-up by Donna Whyte. That is also an excellent resource. The two together will give you what you need for your morning meeting.

This is an awesome book to help build a sense of community in your classroom. The kids love the greetings and games, but best of all they are starting to lead the morning meetings themselves. Working in a low income area I didn't think the meetings would work, however the kids are starting to show more respect towards each other and learn how to greet visitors. I highly recommend this book for ANY classroom.

This excellent book was a great resource for me on a recent trip to China where I taught ESL. As an ex-lawyer with little teaching experience I found it invaluable for many things--the importance of greeting each child by name, making sure the students know each others' names, ideas for quick interactive games to pick up the pace. There's a lot of material I found a little theoretical and not helpful for my specific needs, like the chapter on the "Circle of Power and Respect." But the appendices are chock full of concrete ideas for the classroom. The many illustrations of charts for the news and other exercises were clear and very helpful in envisioning exactly how to execute an idea. This book was recommended by the sponsor of the ESL program I participated in, and I found it well worth the money.

I've always conducted class meetings, but this book is the ultimate guide. Its easy to follow format and practical ideas make it easy for those who've never held class meetings before as well as veteran teachers. And there's research to back up the positive effects these meetings have on student learning! I recommend this book to any teacher. It's given me a greater insight into how my students think, feel, and communicate and starts each day out on an often needed positive note. A must read for any teacher who wants to build a positive classroom community!

This book addresses the place and importance of Greeting, Sharing, Group Activity, and News and Announcements for grades k through 8. It gives both theoretical and practical reasoning as well as many examples. There is an appendix for each component that lists many activities, categorized by appropriate grade level. Kriete does a nice job of pointing out the skills taught in all the components of morning meetings, and step-by-step helps any teacher set the same tone in his/her classroom. For example, in Group Activity, skills such as attentive listening, voice-control, and team-work are re-inforced by specific activities where each is a critical element. There aren't enough books out there on these types of skills! Thanks Roxann Kriete!