Just Kidding Morning Meeting

Last year my third graders, as a cohort, had some trouble with being mean with their "jokes". With no time to do an additional lesson in their rooms, and no extra time in the teachers' schedules, I created a "ready to go" Morning Meeting on the topic for them to use. With rare exceptions, our teachers are expected to conduct a complete Morning Meeting (MM) with their classes right after breakfast/morning work.

While MMs usually don't include read alouds, there was no question that Trudy Ludwig's Just Kidding needed to be used here. In an effort to make things easy on the teachers, I put everything (minus the greeting - my teachers often have students select these) in a PPT. I also used some of my favorite transluscent thought bubble sticky notes in the book for some discussion questions and passed my copy of the book around the five teachers.

The interactive message includes a prompt about other options for being funny. This is crucial here because most of my students, when saying unkind things to others, are doing it to make others laugh and not to actually hurt feelings. In true MM fashion, students read and respond to the message, engage in the greeting --> share --> activity and then read and discuss the message at the end. I gave two options for the share: one more personal and one more generic, allowing for teacher discretion in regards to her class' readiness. The activity involves using hand signals or body motions or moving to parts of the room (gotta include movement!) to decide if situations/dialogue are mean or funny.

I uploaded the PPT to my TPT store (for free) if anyone wants to use it for themselves! I put some additional details in the notes section walking through suggestions for use.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Just-Kidding-Morning-Meeting-Plans-or-Lesson-Plan-2821741

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Responsive Classroom and School Counseling

A few summers ago I was lucky enough to be able to attend a week long training on Responsive Classroom. Besides sharing what I learned with other faculty and staff at my school, I try my best to implement these practices into my Life Skills lessons.

Some key facts about RC:

• Comprised of three interconnected parts: Engaging Academics, Effective Management, and Positive Community
• Focus on child development
• High importance on teacher language (reinforcing statements, reminding statements/questions, and redirecting statements)
• Uses logical consequences (including 'take a break') instead of punishment
• Emphasizes the importance of movement and academic choice
• Uses interactive modeling (as opposed to 'show and tell' modeling) for routines, procedures, social skills, and academic processes

The most major way that I incorporate RC into the school counseling program is through providing teachers with Morning Meeting greetings, shares, activities, and messages that reinforce the Life Skills lessons or target specific class issues. More on this in future posts! 

The other simple way I incorporate RC into the school counseling program is by including a spot for interactive modeling and a spot for academic choice or movement onto my lesson plan template. Seeing those concepts every time I write a lesson reminds me to include them. Here's my template:

*The spot for "MNPS Student Characteristic(s)" is something specific to my school district. School counselors create action plans every month to show how we've done something to develop each of five characteristics students need to have when they leave our school.

Interactive modeling has the following components: provide context for the skill you're going to model, model the skill (without commentary), ask the students what they noticed, have another student model, ask the students what they noticed, have all students practice. I've used or will use interactive modeling for:

• walking to the rug from their desks
• using 'talk it out' or 'ignore' in conflict resolution
• deep breathing to regulate strong feelings
• sharing ideas in a group

Here's an outline for what interactive modeling might look like for deep breathing:

I also try to include either academic choice or movement into the lessons. Below are some examples of each.

And last but not least, I try to use teacher language whenever I'm in the classroom, cafeteria, hallway, etc. (pretty much anywhere but my office). I do this partly to model for other teachers in the school and partly because I truly believe it is working to improve behavior. For more information on teacher language in a Responsive Classroom, I recommend checking out the RC website and the book The Power of Our Words by Paula Denton.

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College Week Reboot - Morning Meetings

Last year I really scrambled to put together a college week; this year I had bigger plans and a super co-counselor who was as passionate as me about really rocking the college and career components of our program this year. Our school's daily schedule is TIGHT (I mean, can't-cram-anything-else-can-barely-fit-science sort of tight) and so we knew that any programming needed to integrate into what was already happening in our classrooms and curriculum. One of the ways we managed this was through creating Morning Meeting plans (sans greetings) for the week. This is the overview for the plans for my 3rd and 4th graders (though I think this could work for 2nd-6th):

To view bigger and see the activity details (activity details downloadable through google docs):

Monday:

Activity	College Mythbusting
Share	What are some colleges you’ve already heard of or know about?
Message	“This week is a special week called College Week. I went to college at ______ to study _______. What is 1 thing that you already know about college?”

Tuesday:

Activity	I Have, Who Has w/Local Colleges
Share	Who is someone you know that is in college or went to college?
Message	“Yesterday you thought about what you already know about college. Today, think of 1 question you have about college.”

 (other pages in google doc - click link)

Wednesday:

Activity	Inside/Outside Discussion
Share	If you were creating a college, what would you call it?
Message	“Colleges come in all shapes and sizes. Some are in the country, some are in the city. Some are old, some are new. Some are big, and some are small. Have you ever been on a college campus?” Yes No I’m Not Sure

Thursday:

Activity	Majors A to Z – going around in a circle, students take turns naming things starting with A to Z that you might be able to study in college. Teacher matches what was said with a major of study (ex: Student says “castles”, teacher says “European history”. Student says “Macaroni and cheese”, teacher says “Culinary arts”.)
Share	What do you think you’d like to study or major in in college?
Message	“In order to get into college and graduate from college, you need to be college-ready. One part of being college-ready is being a strong writer. What other ways can you be college-ready?”

Friday:

Activity	Three Corners
Share	What did you learn about college this week?
Message	“Each and every one of you is capable of going to college – I know you can do it. Sign your name on this message if you’re planning to go to college.”

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