Month of Love Link Up - Morning Meeting Shares

Hi, Teachers!

Today marks the beginning of week 2 of the month of love. Every week this month, in honor of Valentine's Day and the month of LOVE, I am hosting a link party about my favorite Responsive Classroom practice: Morning Meeting! This week we'll focus on the sharing component of morning meeting. Next Monday will be about morning meeting activities, followed by morning messages during the last week. If you want to read more about what morning meeting is and why you should use it in your room, check out the first post I wrote for the Month of Love link up here.

So in my classroom, there are three main types of sharing that we do:

1. Dialogue sharing- a few students share about the topic at hand (it could be content-specific or about their personal lives). I model how to do this type of sharing by keeping it brief and sharing the main ideas. Students then ask thoughtful questions (rather than yes/no questions) to learn more about what their classmates shared, and the classmate who shared answers them.
2. Partner sharing- very similar to a dialogue share, students share something content-specific or something about their personal lives with a partner. Students ask each other questions to clarify and build conversational skills. Everyone in the class is sharing at the same time, and both partners share.
3. Circle sharing- All students go around in a circle, sharing their answer to a specific question with the whole class. 

Now, every now and then, I will vary from those 3 sharing structures, but it's not common. My favorite tip, no matter what type of sharing takes place, is to play "Who remembers?" at the end of a sharing session. This is really powerful because it helps keep students accountable for learning important speaking and listening skills, and it also emphasizes that what the kids share is actually thought of as something important. They are valued.

So if the kids are sharing with a partner, you might end the sharing session and before moving onto your morning meeting activity, you would say, "Who remembers what their partner shared?" and listen to a few ideas. Let's pretend that you facilitated a circle share in which you asked students what their favorite thing about winter is. You might ask, "Who remembers what Isabella likes the most about winter?" OR you might ask, "Who really likes drinking hot chocolate?"  The possibilities are endless! It keeps kids on their toes and emphasizes the importance of listening.

Another way I sometimes like to have kids share about themselves is to play a bingo mix, which, contrary to the way it sounds, is not a bingo game! Kids get up and moving and mingle with each other to find out which of their classmates can answer certain questions for them. For example, kids will look for classmates who speak a different language, own a pet, love to read, run quickly, are experts at solving conflicts, etc. This is a really nice way to build community. I'll bet you can guess what I play after using a bingo mix board ("Who remembers?")!

Click the picture above to be taken to a link to download my bingo mix freebie. I have a paid version available as well, which you can access by clicking a link in the description, but start out with the freebie and see how you like it! It's one of my kids favorite things to do. I use a lot of the boards as brain breaks throughout the day.

Now it's your turn to share your ideas! The only rules of the linkup are that you must:

• Include the above image and a link back to my blog.
• Be a good blogger and leave feedback on at least 1 other blog post.
• Share your strategy for the component of Morning Meeting that the week focuses on.

I invite you to add your link below. :) No blog? No problem! Share your ideas in the comments then!