Start your day off on the right foot by creating a structured morning routine for your Kindergarten students! Today, I am going to talk about how I set up my morning routine with my Kindergarteners and walk you through the process to set up yours.
Set up Unpacking Procedures
Before your students step foot in your classroom, it is SO important to decide on your procedures! How your students unpack is one procedure that you need to have in place from the beginning. It depends on a variety of things, like do your students eat breakfast in the classroom or do they have a take home folder, etc. Think about your school policies and what is required of students to do/have.
Here's how the unpacking worked in my previous school.
- Students came in with their backpacks all at the same time. They put their backpack on their hook (which had their name on it), and opened it up.
- Students put their take home folder in the take home bin (which was conveniently right next to the backpack hooks)
- They took out their snack from their lunch box/backpack and put that in the class snack bin.
- Students grabbed their water bottle and placed that on the “water shelf”
- They quietly walked to their desks, pulled out their Morning Work Binder, checked the board to see what page they were on, and got to work.
The first few weeks of school, this unpacking process took awhile to get the hang of. I only had 2 expectations from my students during this time: no talking while unpacking (they were free to talk once they were seated at their desk) and they needed to do this quickly. It's important to make sure to watch and correct students as they needed it the first month of school. I would repeat a few times “folder, snack, water bottle” so that my students remembered the three main steps. Once that first month was over, I rarely needed to remind them of the steps.
Make Morning Work Simple and Meaningful
However you want to start your day with morning work is up to you! My best advice is to find something that is no extra work on your part and that students know how to do. I've tried MANY different morning work options- morning tubs, free play, morning worksheets, stations, etc, but the best solution for my class was using Morning Work Binders. These binders have reusable pages that practice a variety of different skills, like handwriting, sight words, numbers, name writing, spelling words, etc. My students would use a dry erase marker to complete the page of the day.
Once they were finished, they would just erase and complete it again or they could flip to another page. I loved using this because once I taught my students how to complete each page, I never had to go over what to do again! Plus, I made the copies ONCE at the beginning of the year and I never had to worry about morning work again. To read more about Morning Work Binders, you can check out this blog post here. You can find these products in my TPT store- Kindergarten, First Grade, or the K/1 Bundle.
Morning work should only be about 10-15 minutes of your morning. During this time, I would take attendance and do anything else that I needed to do first thing in the morning, like lunch count, or check take home folders. I would also take this time to test my students who knew their sight words, or to pull students who needed make up work, etc. I liked being able to do what I needed to get done in the morning, and I knew all my students were working quietly.
To transition to the start of our morning, I set a timer that plays music when it was time for my students to clean up. They would stop what they were doing, erase their page, close their binder and put it away. Then, push in their chair and go to the designated spot for the welcome song and morning meeting.
Start with a Greeting or Welcome Song
Songs are a great way to start your morning! At the beginning of the year, we use the song “Hello Friends” to greet each other. I show them how to find a friend, shake their hand, then do the rest of the “dance” with them. It's such a cute way to start the day and allows your students to say hello to their friends. You can check out this YouTube playlist for more suggestions for songs to start your morning with.
You can choose to have your students sing along to the song, follow the hand motions, or just sit and listen. Make sure to state your expectations for the welcome song.
How to Run Your Morning Meeting
One of the best Professional Development books I've read is The Morning Meeting Book by Roxann Kriete and Carol Davis. They emphasize the importance of starting your day off with a morning meeting. I highly recommend it for anyone who is looking for a way to connect with their students and build a positive classroom community. You can find it here (Amazon affiliate link)
After reading this book, it helped me structure a meaningful morning meeting with my students. Here's how mine went:
First, my students would all sit down in a circle on our carpet. I would shake the hand of the student next to me and say “Good Morning ___.” Somedays we would shake hands, other days we would do a high five or fist bump. The important thing is that they were learning how to greet each other.
Next we would do the question of the day. Every day, I had a different question, that I would ask my students, like “What's your favorite ice cream flavor?” or “What is your favorite book?” We would go around the circle again and say their answer. To help think of questions, I loved using this Reflection Prompt resource from The Primary Brain. It helped to have ready to go meaningful questions for each month!
Last, we would talk about the schedule and any special events for the day. Usually, I would have a Morning Message for my students to read with me. Sometimes we would just talk about the schedule for the day looking at our schedule cards. Talking about this first thing in the morning helped alleviate some of the “What special do we have?” or “Is it lunch time yet?” questions that you get over and over again.
You can read more about how I structured my morning meeting here.
Transition into your First Subject of the Day
Now your morning routine is almost done! It's time to transition to the first subject of the day. Many teachers choose to do Calendar Math as part of their morning routine. Since I always had my Reading Centers first thing in the morning, I started our day with a Phonemic Awareness Daily Warm- Up, then a short Phonics lesson. After Phonics, we would go straight into our Reading Centers. I would introduce the centers of the day and we would officially start our day.
Establishing a structured morning routine in Kindergarten helps your students know what to expect every day. In Kindergarten, routines are everything! I hope this post helped you think of some ideas for your own morning routine! Let me know which idea you are going to try in your classroom!
This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small portion of sales, which goes to help run my blog, Sweet for Kindergarten. I only share products that I love!
Joanna says
Thank you for these tips! I liked that your process was specific and not too general. It definitely gave me a lot to think about and change in my TK class.
Kristina says
Hi Joanna,
So glad this was helpful! Thanks for reading!
Kristina