Nearly every school morning, my four year old prances down Locust Street en route to our beloved preschool, Kids on 12th in Center City, Philadelphia and chirps, “Mommy, we have to hurry! I don’t want to miss morning meeting! Teacher Hugo will probably have his guitar!” To be honest, until recently, I wasn’t sure exactly what a “morning meeting” was, aside from the occasional glimpses into the ritual at drop off, so I checked in with Julius DeAngeles, Kids on 12th’s Academic Director, to figure out just what this whole thing was about, and honestly, I think we could ALL use a Morning Meeting in our lives!
-Mollie, Editor, A Child Grows in Philly
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Much has been written over the years regarding the importance of a “Morning Meeting”for classrooms; a way for the students to join together in a group and share ideas, to talk about what the day’s schedule is going to be and to have fun. And as fun as Morning Meetings are (I can say without reservation that we laugh at every one), they also serve a very important purpose. For children coming from different experiences and backgrounds, it provides a common ground from which they can explore and learn.
Singing songs together and participating in activities like coming up with as many words as we can that begin with the Letter of the Week, counting together and reviewing what we are learning that week, further cement the concept of community which is so vital to a classroom.
To be sure, there are guidelines – another bonus to participating! It establishes rules, promotes common courtesy and reinforces all of the skills that the children will carry with them for the rest of their lives. For those of you who can’t actually witness one of our Playschool morning meetings at Kids on 12th, here is a rough idea!
We come together after a period of free play (equally important to socially greet our friends after a night with our families). Everyone is then called to form a circle and hold hands. From there we join together in a song that we all know (we have a list of about 4 that we mix up and they all have to do with introducing ourselves and meeting each other). Next, we say good morning to all of our teachers but we allow the children to come up with inventive ways to do so. They could suggest that we say good morning like a race car, like we’re blowing bubbles, like we’re a snowman… you get the idea!
Next we go over what we are learning that week (dinosaurs, weather, Dr. Seuss stories, etc.). We follow that with our Letter of the Week and Number of the Week. For the letter of the week, we come up with as many new words that we can for that letter. For number of the week, we choose one student to lead us in a count to that number.
Next, we let one student count how many children there are in class each day and sometimes we have someone guess or estimate how many kids are there. After that it’s on to our Silly Word Game where a teacher offers a very silly (and very long) word for the letter of the week and each child has to say that word when their name is called. We get very creative and off-the-wall with our Silly Words: once, the word was Octonocular!
Then, we head to the “blue room” where we sing our Day of the Week and Month of the Year songs and take a look at our daily weather chart. One student is chosen to be our Weather Person and looks out the window to give us our weather report.
And… all this takes place in about 20 minutes. It’s A LOT, and we definitely have fun – but it’s so important because it provides the foundation for the rest of the day, the week and the future of their classroom learning habits.
The Morning Meeting, or some form of morning routine is equally important to older kids as they move through their school years. As they change classrooms, classmates and teachers each year, their sense of belonging to a classroom community needs to restart with each year. The morning routine for kids, just our grown up morning routine (a coffee at the local cafe, a gathering at the water to cooler to discuss the weather, the traffic or the hassle of school drop off that day) gives students a predictable and consistent way of setting the tone for the rest of the day.
A great way to start your day!
Julius DeAngelus, born in Atlantic City and raised in Philly, is Academic Director at Kids on 12th. He discovered his love for teaching after being laid off from his job of 12 years in an advertising agency. “It was the best thing that could have happened to me”, he says. Julius worked at McCall Elementary school for 3 years as a teaching assistant and then decided to go back to college. He has a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Chestnut Hill College and has also attended Temple University and Community College of Philadelphia. He and his wife Susan live in Northern Liberties and are the proud parents of an eleven-year old daughter and a thirty-year old son.