My journey to holding theme-based morning meetings was the result of a perfect storm in my teaching career. My state had just adopted the Common Core State Standards, bringing themes in literature to the forefront of our literacy standards in 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade. That summer, I read the Responsive Classroom’s The Morning Meeting Book , and later in the year, I became keenly aware that one of my FAVORITE ways of bonding with my students at the beginning of the year—reading aloud lots of picture books—fell to the wayside as I got into my reader’s workshop and started reading chapter books. What is a theme-based morning meeting AND why might you fall in love with it, too? Let me share!

WHAT (EXACTLY) IS A THEME-BASED MORNING MEETING?

My theme-based morning meetings are a routine classroom experience that allows students the opportunity to develop personally, academically, and socially through the use of self-reflection, read alouds, songs, videos, quotations, key vocabulary, classroom discussions, and the teacher as a trusted guide. Each element of the framework links together to create a theme-study while at the same time teaching social-emotional skills, character education, and strengthening the bonds of our classroom community.

The 5 phases of the framework include:

1. Exposure/Launching the Theme (without coming right out and telling students what the theme is)

2. Introducing the Theme, Self-Reflection, and Goal Setting (This phase includes teaching key vocabulary.)

3. Whole-Group Discussions

4. Building the Theme

5. Consolidating Learning, Reflecting, and Creating Closure

Each element of this theme-based morning meeting framework connects back to the theme we are focusing on. This process helps students develop “big ideas” and gain new insights about the current theme.

MORE ABOUT WHERE THEME-BASED MORNING MEETINGS CAME FROM

When I took a hard look at the picture books I enjoyed reading to my students AND what I felt was missing once the year really took off, I realized that we were missing out on the themes that worked so hard to bring us together at the beginning of the year—sense of belonging, compassion, kindness, perseverance, celebrating our uniqueness, courage, growth mindset, and so many other topics.

All of a sudden, it just made perfect sense to base the course of my morning meetings on themes in literature. This allowed me to continue to touch on these important messages ALL YEAR LONG and it created an organizational structure to tie morning meetings together in a more meaningful way. The first year of theme-based morning meetings SOLD ME on the transformative power of this type of morning meeting and I never looked back!

Why else Do I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the conscious decision of teaching through themes in literature in my morning meetings? Here are a few reasons why:

THEME-BASED MORNING MEETINGS ALLOW FOR GREATER CREATIVITY AND FOCUS

A theme-based approach to morning meetings has allowed me to be more organized as I plan for our meetings. Within the consistency of the framework I have designed for morning meetings, I can still be very creative in how I share the theme with students and provoke discussions. YouTube videos, songs and lyrics, picture book read alouds, poetry, mini-activities and projects, current events, artwork, memes, or just a simple question for students to respond to—the possibilities are endless but any and every creative teaching idea fits into the routine when the activity is part of building understanding of the focus theme!

Rather than thinking, “What am I going to talk about today?,” once I know the theme I am addressing (for a few weeks), I can FOCUS on deciding how I’m going to address the theme during morning meetings.

THEME-BASED MORNING MEETINGS INCREASE THE USE OF PICTURE BOOKS AND PROVIDE AN EXTRA OPPORTUNITY TO READ ALOUD

I’ve already mentioned this HUGE benefit, but it deserves a lengthier explanation!

My theme-based morning meeting allows me the increased opportunity to use picture books with my students. As we get past the “beginning of the year phase,” my reader’s workshop read alouds quickly become chapter books, but I know that picture books are still an appropriate, engaging, and fun teaching tool for upper elementary students. Picture books give us the opportunity to see a full story unfold in a short amount of time. They offer us the opportunity to "get to the point" and have discussions around a complete text in one or two classroom meetings.

I like to think that I instill a life-long love of picture books in my students. So now, rather than pulling them out sporadically with a feeling of guilt that I have not shared more picture books with my students, I am able to consistently use them as a teaching tool because they are embedded in my morning meeting lesson plans. You can find lists of my recommended read alouds organized by theme on Amazon. (NOTE: That link to my Amazon storefront. I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. Read my full disclosure here.)

THEME-BASED MORNING MEETINGS CAN INCREASE YOUR COMMITMENT TO CONSISTENT MORNING MEETINGS

Ummm, anyone want to admit how many times they’ve tried a new routine and fallen off the wagon? My initial iteration of morning meetings (following some of the Responsive Classroom’s model) quickly fell to the wayside as the year got rolling and my content-based teaching took over. However, planning morning meetings with themes in literature (especially those that hit important social and emotional skills) as the driving force increased my commitment to consistently hold morning meetings.

Why? The theme-based approach allows me the regular opportunity to teach important literacy skills in addition to what we learn in reader’s workshop. As I expose students to new themes, teach related vocabulary, and read multiple books on the same theme, I am able to also teach how author's build a theme, analyzing an author’s message or perspective, text to text connections, comparing and contrasting literature, and more.

Because of the multi-purpose use of a read aloud, I know that I’m not “taking time away” from my schedule by adding morning meetings. Morning meetings complement and increase the meaning behind everything the we do, especially in our literacy block. When I know and believe that morning meeting complements my literacy instruction, and sometimes becomes my literacy instruction, it makes me more committed to sticking to my morning meeting routines.

In addition, the framework for morning meetings creates greater commitment because each meeting is connected to the theme we are studying. Meetings become easier to lead and plan for because we stay on the same topic for a few weeks. When you know you are going to continue a discussion or build your students’ understanding of a topic on the following day, morning meeting becomes something to look forward to and a place where you can FEEL your students’ learning.

THEME-BASED MORNING MEETINGS HELP TEACH AND ENHANCE YOUR LITERACY STANDARDS

What really made me a firm believer in my themed-morning meetings? The first year that I implemented my theme-based morning meeting, I saw immediate and tremendous growth in my students’ understanding of theme. I regularly observe students referring back to our "Morning Meeting Themes" bulletin board during our readers workshop and I often ask them to take a look at it when we are discussing theme and central messages during our reading mini-lessons. Our “Morning Meeting Themes” bulletin board is a great reference tool for students when they are writing in their reader response notebooks. The fruits of our morning meetings multiply during readers workshop!

Morning meetings organized by theme studies allow you to double-dip in the best way!

Take a look at the Common Core standards that are met through my theme-based morning meeting lessons.

3RD GRADE:

RL3.2: Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.

RL3.9: Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (e.g., in books from a series)

4TH GRADE:

RL4.2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.

RL4.9: Compare and contrast the treatment of similar themes and topics (e.g., opposition of good and evil) and patterns of events (e.g., the quest) in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures.

5TH GRADE:

RL5.2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

RL5.9: Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.

This list of standards is not even exhaustive. Depending on the lesson, I can hit nearly any ELA standard through morning meetings. In a future post, I will go into even more detail about the standards you can teach through theme-based morning meetings!

By now, you’ve hopefully been convinced that theme-based morning meetings are the way to go! But, how can you fit them into your schedule? And, what are some tips for maintaining morning meetings ALL YEAR LONG? That’s coming up in my next post!

YOU CAN GRAB YOUR FIRST MORNING MEETING UNIT FOR 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 resources for virtual morning meetings or remote learning, 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 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.

Which part of the theme-based morning meeting framework would improve your morning meetings the most? Would love to hear in the comments!