It’s Monday so that means the Monday blues…sore, tired feet (seriously, my feet HURT. I mean a real hurt like they’ve been abused…not the normal teacher hurt!)…and Morning Meeting Monday!
Today I want to share a little about how we begin to implement the most challenging part of the morning meeting. That is the sharing component of morning meeting. It is the most challenging (especially with my kindergarten monsters) but it is the most important in building trust, community and a sense of safety.
We start off small with our sharing. The first thing we discuss is what it means to “share.” This is hard. When my monsters hear share they think share toys and share glue. I try to explain (“try” because we know sometimes Mr. Greg isn’t always successful. And I’m OK with that!) that sharing is telling us about you. When we share we are telling our friends things that we did, things that happened to us or something we might be doing. I try to start sharing time on a Monday morning. To make it simple, I ask each child to share or tell one thing they did over the weekend. As the week continues, we follow that same routine. Everyone shares something they did the night before. I hear a lot of “I did my homework” or ” I went to sleep!” After we do this routine for a week, I move into the regular routine of sharing. Monday everyone shares 1 thing about their weekend. The rest of the week I ask for thumbs up if you want to share. I try to call on four monsters (2 boys and 2 girls to share)! As we share I will ask questions about what we share. As the year goes on, we will begin to ask each other questions (more on that in a later post!)
Do you have sharing time in your classroom?
And now I wanted to share what we did today! HEADS UP there will be no Saturday Kindergarten Post this week. I think I have something happening on Saturday….I hope you can survive until The Post returns in two weeks. I know…it’s tough.
We started our Read For The Record celebration today! We finished our door (not nearly as cute as I planned but it’s finished…and for some reason I have other stuff on my mind…), we made our fireflies for our hallway and we decorated our hallway! (Apologies for the photo quality! The iPhone didn’t like taking pictures in a blacked out hallway!)
These are super cute! Was so happy with how they turned out!! 
This is our “Getting Buggy With Books” door! Love that there is a writing component! The bugs are not at all what I wanted/planned/envisioned but it’s done! And the kids are super cute!
We covered the lights in our hallways with black plastic and hung lights outside of each door to simulate fireflies! Nothing beats hearing the oooh and aaaahh of your students! It’s those moments that make the stress worth every minute!
Shape monsters! This is my special ed friend and his shape monster was on the best!! Just look at that smile! He was so proud of himself!
And of course, we can’t forget that it’s Monday and that means HAT DAY! This week are not focusing on the letter N (a message was passed down that we should not focus on a letter in isolation…ummm really? We don’t…moving on!)
You know you’ve waited…and hoped…well, hope and wait no longer! It’s Greg in a silly hat!!
Today was mismatch day! Cute huh?!
Shirt: H&M
Pants: H&M
Socks: H&M
Shoes: Skechers