A fun morning meeting activity will get your students excited and focused, allowing them to warm up their brains and their bodies for the rest of the school day.
Below, we have listed 8 of the best responsive classroom morning activities for you to try today.
So, let’s get started!
What Is A Morning Meeting Activity?
A morning meeting activity is a particular kind of school activity that occurs right away in the morning, before class begins, and encourages primary kids to begin their days as a team.
Morning meetings should take no more than 30 minutes, though some can even be as brief as 10. The amount of time required will vary based on the activity itself.
Nevertheless, all morning meetings are intended to assist students develop unity among themselves and show them how to function as a team, regardless of if the morning meeting activity is an enjoyable competition or more scholarly in character.
By taking part in a morning meeting activity, the children will learn basic skills whilst having fun with their classmates before jumping straight into their work for the day!
1. ‘Look Who Came To School Today’ Song
As a teacher, it is your duty to energize the children in the mornings to prepare them for the big day ahead. A great way to do this is to start a dance party!
For this idea, we have taken inspiration from this TikTok video by @sonnyummi, or Ms. Say. In this video, all the children begin by sitting down. Ms. Say proceeds to sing this song:
‘Look who came to school today, School today, School today! Look who came to school today; [Insert name] came to school.’
With each verse, she sings a student’s name. That student is then allowed to stand up from their seat and start dancing to the song. By the time the song is over, each student will be up and grooving!
This is a fun way to get the children’s energy flowing, whilst also involving each of them personally by singing their names.
2. ‘Good Morning To Everyone Who…’ Game
If you’re not much of a singer, and some of your children do not feel as comfortable dancing, there are plenty of other ways to use their names and get them involved in a fun morning meeting activity.
This activity requires all the children to be sat down quietly, paying attention to you. You will say the phrase, ‘Good morning to everyone who…’, and then add something that may apply to some children.
For example, you may say ‘Good morning to everyone who has blue eyes’.
Once you have said this, you can create a fun way for all the children who have blue eyes to reveal to the class that they relate to this statement. They could simply stand up, or put their hands in the air.
Other examples for you to include are:
…who walked to school today.
…who has a pet hamster.
…whose favorite color is green.
3. Modes Of Transportation Activity
Linking back to one of the options we mentioned in the previous morning meeting activity, you could start the day by focusing on which mode of transportation each student took to get to school that morning.
You could do this by color-coding each mode of transportation that each child may have taken that morning, and giving each child a pencil of that color. For example:
Those who walked to school get a red pencil.
Those who caught the bus get a yellow pencil.
Those who were driven to school get a purple pencil.
You could then give them a piece of paper, and ask them to draw themselves travelling to school using that pencil. These pictures could be later used for a wall display.
This is not only a great activity to get everyone involved in the conversation, but it is also a good way to encourage students to walk to school if they live close by.
You can teach them about the effects of air pollution, and how cars and buses can contribute to it.
4. The ‘Funny Voice’ Game
This morning meeting activity is a great way to start the day with a couple of laughs. Your class will undoubtedly start giggling when they hear all the funny voices spoken during this particular game.
You choose one student to stand at the front of the class, turning their back on their classmates.
Then, you silently select one of the students still sitting at their desk; you could tap them on the shoulder, or point at them.
The chosen student must then say a word – e.g., ‘hello’ – in a silly voice that disguises their usual one. The student at the front of the class must then work out who said it.
Not only is this a fun way to start the day, but it is also a fun way to test how well your students know each other. It may build friendships, and improve the ones that are already existing.
5. ‘Making A Line’ Game
This activity will involve all of your students standing up, so it may be best to move around some desks to clear room.
You may want to split your students into smaller groups, although it can be done by using them all as one big group.
If you split them into smaller groups, though, you can turn this activity into a competition to see who can complete the activity the fastest.
Basically, you begin by announcing a category to the class. The students will then have to organize themselves into a line in order of that category.
For example, if you chose ‘birthdays’, the students born at the start of January would be at the start of the line, and those born in December stand on the other end.
The children will need to communicate to each other to work out who stands where.
A fun and educational category to pick would be ‘the colors of the rainbow’. The children will have to organize themselves in the color of the rainbow, based on the color of their shirts.
6. The ‘Secret Sorting’ Game
This activity will involve you selecting 3 or 4 students to stand at the front of the class. The remainder of the students will then need to guess what these students have in common.
You will need to work out something that these 3–4 students have in common before sorting them into a group. For example, they could all be wearing yellow t-shirts, or they could all have brown eyes.
The better you know your students, the easier this will be. If you know that four of your students have two brothers, for example, you can use this as a similarity to sort them.
The remainder of the students can ask the chosen children questions to work out what exactly they have in common.
This is a fun way for your class to get to know each other better, whilst also working on their inquiry skills.
7. The Alphabet Game
This is a more simple activity for your class to take part in, and it is one that allows them to function on their own without your help.
This allows you to finish off any lesson plans that you need to wrap up before class starts.
Select a student to begin. You can either give them a category’, or ask them to create a sentence.
The first student will say a word beginning with the letter A, and then the student next to them will say a word beginning with B, and so on.
If you give a category, e.g., ‘fruits’, they will have to name fruits beginning with their given letter. This is the easiest option, and is more recommended for younger students.
If you choose to create a sentence, they will have to create a sentence only using words of their letter; for example, ‘A Baby Can Donate Eggs For Good Hummus.’ (The funnier the sentence, the better – as long as it makes sense!)
8. A Simple Sing-Along
Last but not least, we have an easy morning meeting activity for you and your class to partake in.
If you play the guitar, you could bring your instrument into class for this activity. If not, you could always play instrumental songs on YouTube.
All you need to do is select a song for everybody to sing along to. Just make sure the lyrics are written on the board for everyone to see!
Final Thoughts
Morning meeting activities can be a super fun way to teach your students whilst letting them blow off a little steam before class begins.
Whether you love to sing, or want to encourage the children to work on their inquiry skills, these are all fun ways to get the class working.
We hope you found something in our list that has caught your eye. Don’t forget to add them to your lesson plan for the future.
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
