Class three feels a bit like an in-between year in terms of how we start our day. The children still need to move, warm up and work together in the mornings, but they also desperately need to chat to each other and socialise. So how to bring these two needs together in a healthy way? Over the course of our class three year I’ve brought in elements of the Morning Meeting. For those unfamiliar, Morning Meeting is a concept developed by the masterminds behind the Responsive Classroom programme – a whole suite of resources and ideas to support social-emotional learning and classroom management. Morning Meeting is kind of like a super structured Waldorf morning circle (therefore automatically something that appeals to me!). Morning Meeting essentially has four components: a greeting, a sharing, a group activity, and a message. As the children have moved towards the older half of the year they’ve been increasingly ready for all four components, but starting the year we focussed predominantly on the first three. So how does each look in my classroom each morning?
After the students come in to the room (they wait outside until the bell and I shake each child’s hand as they come through the door), each one finds a seat in the circle. They have a few minutes of social time then as the stragglers are greeted. We then do a greeting. I think in the Waldorf classroom we are excellent as teachers at greeting each child, and they us, however, we rarely give students the opportunity to formally greet one another in the morning. This is the time I use to do just that. It only takes a couple of minutes, and I try to keep things simple, playful and ever-changing. Some days they greet and shake hands with neighbours around the circle. Sometimes they toss a beanbag and greet the person they’ve tossed to. Sometimes they greet the class in their home language. The possibilities are endless, and keeping it moving at pace is key.
Following the greeting, we’ll do some form of sharing. The purpose of sharing is to help the students build connections across the class, learn to actively listen, and learn to speak clearly and confidently to the group. These can be big or small, long or short. A few favourites in my class this year have been ‘if I were an [ice cream flavour, animal, book character etc] I would be …’; ‘the best thing I did in the weekend was …’; or in small groups that you as the teacher quickly create ‘the thing I’m looking forward to most at school today is…’; ‘my dream pet is … because …’ Again, the possibilities are endless and you can keep it fun and quick very easily. The most important thing here is to set clear expectations of behaviour during sharing time – only one person speaks at a time, after your turn is up no more talking, sensible sharing, etc.
We’ll normally then do the roll and the verse, and I find the children are much more settled and responsive to this after they’ve got the social chit-chat out of their systems in the greeting and sharing part of the circle.
The final main part of morning meeting is that which almost every Steiner class does most mornings anyway – the group activity. This can be singing, dancing, a game, poetry recitation, maths work, or whatever you might normally bring to your class at this time. This is the time for cooperative working, movement and activity, and with some of the socialising out of their systems, the children are far more readily able to get on with this part of the morning. I think the key here though, is to keep it brief. Don’t stack up this part of morning meeting with all of the things I just listed – just pick one or two per day. We don’t want to exhaust the children in the morning circle just when we want them to be able to focus on their class work in main lesson right afterwards!
Morning meetings also technically have a message. This is in the form of a written greeting, instruction, joke, or ‘heads up’ about the day displayed on the board as the students enter. This year, I’ve kept this very simple – it’s just the timetable for the day, and the riddle of the week. It gives the children something to look at and discuss as they walk in, but isn’t a ‘chore’ for them first thing. Next year I think they’ll be ready for something that requires them to engage a bit more – a puzzle, maths problem, word problem, or task for the morning. We’ll see when we get there though.
If you’re keen to have a go at bringing Morning Meeting into your classroom, the Responsive Classroom have published some great books chock full of ready-to-go ideas that you can roll out straight away.