Morning Routine
Monday-Friday, 8:55-9:20am
Morning meetings are a good way to begin the day and easily transition into the daily routine.
Morning Meetings:
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Create a positive and safe classroom environment
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Increase student productivity, engagement, and academic achievement
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Develop cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control
(Bondy & Ketts, 2001)
Literacy Food Groups:
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Reading fluency and expression
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Reading comprehension
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Spelling and word study
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Phonemic awareness
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Oral language
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Writing
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Motivation for literacy
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Knowledge building
Objective:
The purpose of our morning meetings are to settle the class, prepare them for the day, foster a safe environment, and integrate literacy instruction.
Our morning routine:
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Students organize their items on hooks located in the hallway.
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Some students complete their ‘classroom job’ if applicable.
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Other students sit on the carpet and read a book from the bookshelf until O’ Canada plays.
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The teacher takes attendance and the two attendance helpers bring it to the office.
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While waiting for the students to return, the class engages in a literacy game (it is different every day) called, “The Morning Game.”
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When the whole class is present, a circle is formed and “Around the World” begins. This activity focuses on community development, self-awareness, listening, and oral language.
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One at a time, students describe how they are feeling today in a full sentence, and they are also given the right to pass.
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To increase vocabulary, students are encouraged to use the word wall which contains synonyms for various feelings.
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After each student's response the next student to participate responds by saying, “You are also feeling…” and lists a synonym for that feeling.
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Students’ attention is then brought to the schedule for the day. Students with LDs require structure, so it is important to prepare them for the day. Choral reading is practiced, as the teacher and students read the schedule in unison.
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A text is presented on the Smartboard with an activity for the purpose of targeting a specific learning goal.
Monday
The Morning Game: Add On!
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Sitting in a circle, the teacher begins by saying a word and the next person says a word that begins with the same sound as the end of the first word. For example, if the teacher says, “captain” the student can say, “navy”.
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This continues around the circle until the attendance helpers return. If a student is stuck they can use the word wall for reference or ask the audience.
Text: “Peanuts” comic strip
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The comic strip below will be presented to students on the Smartboard.
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The teacher reads one speech bubble at a time with expression, then has the class echo his or her voice. After reading all the speech bubbles, the class reads the entire comic strip together from the beginning.
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Echo reading is a strategy used to develop fluency, expression, and motivation for literacy. Students learn how to read with expression because of the modeling done by the teacher (Cunningham & Allington, 2011). Students can relate to the text and will probably find it funny, adding engagement to the lesson.
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Tuesday
The Morning Game: Antonym and Synonym Around the World
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Sitting in a circle, the teacher begins with a word that all students would have in their vocabulary; example run
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The person next to the teacher has to name a synonym or antonym of the first word, and this continues around the circle until there are no other possibilities.
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A new word is chosen by the person who could not think of any other synonym or antonym. The game finishes when the attendance helpers return.
Text: “Puppy Hailed as Hero” newspaper article
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The article title, “Puppy Hailed as Hero” would be displayed on the Smartboard and students would be asked to complete a think-write-prediction and think-write-connection on their clipboard or iPads.
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Think-writes are beneficial for students with LDs because they help to focus and clarify students’ thinking. They can document their ideas, therefore retain information so it can be recalled and shared with the class. They are only for the purposes of the student’s needs and for his or her eyes only, which eliminates the pressure of writing (Cunningham & Allington, 2011).
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The full article (shown below) would then be presented and slowly read aloud by the teacher. As the teacher read, he or she would include think-alouds to model comprehension strategies. At the same time, students would have the opportunity to complete think-writes to keep track of their thoughts and the facts in the article.
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Think-alouds are beneficial for all students, especially ELLs because they provide modeling. Students can listen and learn without feeling pressured to perform or speak (Cunningham & Allington, 2011).
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Following the read aloud, an oral discussion would take place to summarize the article and make further connections. Students would also compare the conclusions with their own personal predictions in a “think-pair-share” activity.
Puppy Hailed as Hero
A one-year-old puppy in Winnipeg is being hailed a hero after its barks drew attention to a house fire and triggered rescue efforts for the people sleeping inside.
Paige Kozak and her husband Kevin were sleeping in a St. Vital home, when their one-year-old puppy Luna let out some urgent barks in the middle of the night.
"She's not a barker, she'll bark once a week when she gets really excited about the ball but it's an unusual circumstance. So I definitely think she must have smelled smoke," Kevin told CTV Winnipeg on Friday.
The one-year-old miniature golden doodle -- a cross between a golden retriever and a miniature poodle -- normally sleeps peacefully through the night, so Paige initially assumed the dog needed to go outside for a bathroom break. She got up to take Luna outside while Kevin continued to sleep.
But when Paige opened the door to let Luna out, a cloud of smoke immediately filled the entrance and she realized something was very wrong -- the neighbour's house and back deck were on fire while two people slept inside, unaware of the danger.
Paige yelled to Kevin for help, and he quickly ran outside to assist. While Paige called 911, Kevin jumped the fence between the two homes and began using a bucket to throw water on the flames until fire crews arrived to put out the fire.
Kevin then flagged down the fire truck and helped firefighters access the house -- still unaware that there were people inside.
In fact, the two occupants of the home didn't awaken until fire fighters alerted them to the danger.
"We didn't find out until this morning that there were actually people in there and we thought oh god, we're really lucky Luna woke us up and I think they're fairly happy as well that all that happened," Kevin said.
The couple plans to reward Luna with a long walk in the park.
(CTVNews.ca Staff, 2015)
Wednesday
The Morning Game: Word Wall Hunt
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The teachers thinks of a word located on the word wall, and provides students with clues so they can guess the word.
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Clues are given until the word is solved and the game continues until the attendance helpers return.
Text: “Rockin’ Robin” lyrics
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Students are studying music from the 1950’s in music class. To integrate music with literacy a section of the original song, “Rockin’ Robin” by Bobby Day will be played on the Smartboard with the lyrics presented (as shown below).
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The class will sing this section of the song three times in unison. The incentive is that the class will perform the piece for their music teacher at 11:05am.
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This uses the choral reading strategy, “Choral reading helps build students' fluency, [sight word recognition], self-confidence, and motivation. Because students are reading aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support” (“Choral Reading”, n.d., para. 1).
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Rockin' Robin
He rocks in the tree tops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and a-singing his song
All the little birds on Jaybird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet
Rockin' robin (Tweet x 3)
Rockin' robin (Tweet, tweedle-lee-dee)
Go rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight (Tweet, tweedle-lee-dee)
("Rockin' Robin lyrics", 2015)
Thursday
The Morning Game: Rhyme Around the World
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Sitting in a circle, the teacher begins with a simple word that has many rhymable words; example light.
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The person next to the teacher has to name a real word that rhymes with the first word, and this continues around the circle until there are no more words that rhyme.
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A new word is chosen by the person who could not think of any other rhyming words. The game finishes when the attendance helpers return.
Text: “LOVE” poem
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The poem, “LOVE,” written by Shel Silverstein (as shown below) would be presented on the Smartboard.
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The teacher reads the poem and asks the class to find the words that rhyme and circle them in the same colour. Then students would be asked to think of other words that can replace the circled words (flu/do and way/today).
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The spelling patterns would need to be explicitly discussed and shown on the Smartboard.
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In pairs, students would work on their own poem based on a different four letter word using the same style and AABB pattern.
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This activity enhances phonemic awareness and spelling because children are focusing on spelling patterns (National Institute for Literacy, 2011).
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(Silverstein, 1974)
Friday
The Morning Game: Word Beats
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Students come up with a list of words that have four syllables as a class, and try to break their previous record of 25 words in two minutes.
Text: Scrambled Word Game
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Students are given scrambled letters that make an eight letter mystery word: g i r m o e v n
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Students must make as many two-, three-, and four- letter words with the given letters on their own sheet of lined paper. They can use a dictionary to help guide their thoughts.
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Once complete, they must consider prefixes and suffixes to solve the mystery word: removing.
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In this activity students discover spelling patterns and word strategies on their own, which leads to stronger retention and application to writing (Cunningham & Allington, 2011).
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