The Theme-Based Morning Meeting Routine for Upper Elementary (plus Meaty, Free Morning Meeting Resources)
What if you and your students could get more out of morning meetings with a framework that focuses on using themes in literature? If you love the idea of morning meetings, but want it to be an even more impactful way to deepen students’ understanding of social-emotional skills, build a stronger classroom community, and support students in becoming their best selves, theme-based morning meetings can help you achieve all of those goals! Learn about the 5 phases of the theme-based morning meeting framework for upper elementary and grab your first morning meeting unit for free. I’ve successfully used this framework with 4th graders and 5th graders and I’m excited to share it with you! I’ll be honest, this post is not for the faint of heart! Haha! It’s a long one!
Theme-based morning meetings were truly an ah-ha moment in my teaching career. The first year that I implemented morning meetings, I loosely followed the Responsive Classroom model. It was a great start for our classroom community, but I fizzled out in my commitment to morning meetings after the "back to school" season was over.
It wasn't until I realized the power of THEMES-IN-LITERATURE-BASED morning meetings that I truly committed to daily morning meeting lessons all year long. I felt that I could push beyond morning messages, greetings, and share sessions to take my students to a deeper level of personal development, social-emotional well-being, and classroom community building. And boy, was I RIGHT?! Theme-based morning meetings were LIFE-CHANGING for myself, my students, and my classroom climate.
WHAT ARE THEME-BASED MORNING MEETINGS?
The purpose of a theme-based morning meeting is similar to that of a regular morning meeting routine with the goal of building community and focusing on students’ social and emotional development. It is my belief that theme-based morning meetings take us deeper into our goals for students and not only help us develop a strong classroom community, but strengthen our students as they go out into the world.
In my theme-based morning meetings, I use many teaching strategies, like self-reflection and personal goal setting, read alouds, learning key vocabulary, showing videos and songs, videos, analyzing quotations, classroom discussions, and journaling activities.
Each element of the framework works to create a theme-study while at the same time teaching social emotional learning skills, character education, and strengthening the classroom community. The 5 phases of the framework include:
Exposure/Launching the Theme
Introducing the Theme, Self-Reflection, and Goal Setting
Student Discussion
Building the Theme
Consolidating Learning, Reflecting, and Creating Closure
During theme-based morning meetings, I teach a number of topics to develop students’ social-emotional skills, personal character, and interpersonal skills and relationships. Topics like belonging, compassion, kindness, growth mindset, resolving conflict, managing emotions, responsibility, integrity, perseverance, intrinsic motivation, goal setting, happiness, friendship, and courage.
Let’s learn a little more about what happens in each phase of a theme-based morning meeting unit.
EXPOSURE/LAUNCH THE MORNING MEETING THEME
On the first day of a theme-based morning meeting unit, I launch the theme in an inquiry-based way by choosing one of three main strategies:
Read aloud a picture book
Introduce a Quotation related to the theme.
Show a video related to the theme. (I’ve got a whole blog post that lists my favorite videos to use during morning meetings!)
I typically do not come right out and tell students what theme we will be studying during our launch. I want to tap into their prior knowledge and see what their response is to the chosen read aloud, quotation, or video. Launching a new theme can take 1-2 days, depending on the length of the read aloud or video I have chosen.
INTRODUCE THE MORNING MEETING THEME, SELF-REFLECT, SET GOALS
THEME AND KEY VOCABULARY: After launching the unit and getting students’ minds piqued for the topic, it’s time to introduce the theme and define the related vocabulary I want them to know for this unit. For example, if my new theme is “Kindness,” I introduce the definitions for kindness (acting on feelings of compassion, concern, and awareness of the needs of others) and conscious (aware and responding to one’s surroundings). You can include any terms you feel are important for studying this theme with students. You may also add new vocabulary as you delve deeper into your unit.
I display the theme, a related quotation or two, and the key vocabulary on our Morning Meeting theme bulletin board. This hangs near our meeting space so that it is easy for us to refer to during our unit.
SELF-REFLECTION: In this same phase, students complete a self-reflection related to the theme and set a personal goal. The questions and rating scales on the self-reflection get them thinking about their personal abilities with the goal. For example, the self-reflection for our kindness unit asks students to rate themselves on how good they are at being kind to others and whether or not they go out of their way to extend kindness to others. I recommend that students come up with just one goal to focus on during the unit.
The bulletin board also includes a place for us to record a shared goal to focus on during our unit. I tend to have students come up with a whole-group goal after we have our group discussion.
STUDENT MORNING MEETING DISCUSSION
Usually at the end of day 2 or the beginning of day 3, we are ready to have an in-depth discussion about our morning meeting topic. I give students a journal sheet with 3 discussion questions and space for an illustration.
The journal page allows students to think about the questions and jot down ideas independently before we have our discussion. This improves the quality of our discussion and allows more students to feel comfortable participating when we talk about each question. Examples of discussion questions from our kindness unit include:
List some examples of ways that you have been kind to others.
Think of a time when someone was kind to you. Describe how you felt.
What are some new ideas for ways that you can extend kindness to others (in and outside of school?)
As you can see, the questions typically get students to connect to their own personal experiences, then to put themselves in another’s shoes, and to brainstorm some action steps related to the theme.
During the whole-group discussion, I like to construct an anchor chart or two to capture students’ ideas and document our discussion. We can refer to these anchor charts throughout our unit and add to them as we have new ideas and learn new things.
The discussion phase can take 1-2 days depending on how much time you have to discuss the questions and how much students have to say on the topic.
BUILDING THE MORNING MEETING THEME
Building the theme is an exciting phase in our morning meeting unit. During this phase, we continue building the theme through read alouds, videos, quotations, journaling, and other activities. We work to develop big ideas on the topic by exposing students to more and more examples of the theme in action. During this phase, students will begin making connections between the different stories, quotes, and videos.
I use a great variety of strategies during the building phase. This is also the phase that takes up the most time during our morning meeting unit.
IDEAS AND STRATEGIES FOR BUILDING ON THE MORNING MEETING THEME
Use a related quotation; teach students to analyze it and respond with their own thoughts
Read aloud more picture books related to the theme
Show a video or use a song that hits on the themes of your unit
Generate synonyms for one of your key vocabulary words (kindness, compassion, courage, perseverance, etc).
Compare two closely related terms with a Venn diagram (empathy vs sympathy; kindness vs compassion)
Use role-playing and age-appropriate scenarios to have students discuss how they should respond to the situation
Discuss the struggles one may face when addressing the topic at hand, then come up with strategies for overcoming those challenges (the challenges of being kind; the challenges of being courageous; the challenges of being responsible, etc.)
Make “ABC” lists about the topic (like ABC’s of Kind Deeds; ABC’s of Emotions, etc.)
Incorporate symbolic thinking allowing students to draw a symbol related to the topic; have students write to explain why they chose the symbol to represent the topic
This list is not exhaustive, but it shows you some of the strategies that I like to use during my buildng phase. To be clear, it’s important to read multiple read alouds on the theme (I’d say at least 3) and show at least one video. This will allow students the opportunity to develop those big ideas and make text to text connections. During the “consolidating” phase, I like to bring those big ideas out stronger and chart text to text connections so that I’m actually teaching many of my literacy standards. This is easier when you’ve read enough texts on the related theme!
CONSOLIDATING THE LEARNING, REFLECTING, CREATING CLOSURE
We are in the final phase of our morning meeting unit—consolidating. To consolidate means “putting all of the pieces together.” During the consolidating phase, I help students bring all of our discussions, big ideas, and activities together. What are we going to walk away from this unit having learned?
During the consolidation phase, I like to do three main things—check in on the goal students set at the beginning of the unit, solidify some of the big ideas that have come up during the unit, and do a final reflection on a quotation.
I included a post-reflection prompt at the end of every self-reflection. The prompt asks students to think about how they did with the goal they set and consider what steps they should take to continue working on the goal moving forward. This is an opportunity for students to check in with how their attitudes and abilities have changed.
Next, I like to use the consolidation phase to guide students to have deeper text-to-text connections related to the theme. Throughout the unit, as students were listening to the stories and watching videos, they likely made some connections. Now, we can make those ideas stronger by creating a text-to-text chart, mapping out the key events and outcomes of the stories we’ve read. For example, during our belonging unit, we create a text-text connections chart using Big Al by Andrew Clements and Babushka Baba Yaga by Patricia Polacco.
My goal in this step is to bring the connections that we’ve had throughout the unit to light and to help students develop larger generalizations. In the process of course, we develop NEW ideas that haven’t come up during the unit to this point, and that is the true joy of the consolidating phase for me.
If you want more details on how I teach my belonging unit, you can grab the materials for free or read all about it in this blog post!
DOWNLOAD YOUR FIRST MORNING MEETING UNIT FREE!
This free theme unit is packed with lesson ideas, student journal pages, discussion prompts, self-reflections, bulletin board materials, and more. YES! Everything you see below for the belonging theme is FREE!
If you need digital resources for morning meetings, I’ve got you covered with Google Slides versions of each theme set. Grab your FREE slides for belonging here.
THEMES TO GUIDE YOUR MORNING MEETINGS ALL YEAR LONG
If you’d like more social emotional learning theme units with a focus on encouraging students’ social, emotional, and academic success, you may be interested in the Morning Meeting Mega Bundle of 17 theme units. With units focused on kindness, compassion, growth mindset, gratitude, perseverance, responsibility, managing emotions, and so much more, your engaging morning meeting plans are done for you and your students will love them! You can save 10% on the Mega Bundle of all 17 themes with the code MM10.
Watch the video below to get a better feel for what is included in my morning meeting theme sets!
Whether you add more social-emotional picture books to your morning meetings, plan out your discussion questions, or include some related quotes, this framework is sure to enhance your morning meetings and help you love them even more!
