Today I’m sharing 13 of ideas for morning meeting greetings! Morning meeting is one of my favorite things in the classroom. I love that we all come together to start our day. I love that we cover tons of standards in fun, hands on, engaging ways! We get to talk and share our lives. The sharing is a powerful way to connect to your students and build those all important relationships. People ask me about classroom management all of the time. My first question to them: Do you do morning meeting????? Morning meeting is an essential piece to classroom management. Pretty much, morning meeting is everything. BAM!
People, if you’re not doing morning meeting, stop it. Start tomorrow. For serious. Mr. Greg says.
The first part of morning meeting is the greeting….so….here are some of our favorite greetings!
(TIP: For each greeting, I describe the greeting and then give you links to a blog post and YouTube video featuring that greeting. Those links will give more details for each of the morning meeting greetings!)
Name Greeting
Put each child’s name and photograph on an index card. Place them face down on a chair/stool, etc. Students take turns picking a card, they must say the name on the card, find that person and greet them. This is a great greeting for the beginning of the year!
Snowball Fight
Write student’s names on pieces of paper (or have them write their name). Crumple the paper into a snowball. Instruct and model how to throw SOFTLY. Teacher says “SNOWBALL FIGHT” and students toss their snowballs. Everyone picks up a snowball, reads the name and greets that person!
(This greeting can be used with any skill or concept! Just change what your write on the paper!)
Fist Bump:
Simple greeting. Students greet the person sitting next to them and they give them a fist bump. You can see the fist bump in action in this morning meeting video.
It’s Hot!
This is a great way to integrate science into the morning meeting.
(Click the picture for a detailed blog post about this greeting)
Program thermometers with red (hot) and blue (cold). When students greet each other, they say “Shew, it’s hot…..(say student’s name).” Or BRRR It’s cold…..”
French Fries:
Instead of saying Good morning! Student’s say “French Fries….(say student’s name).
“French Fries, Dogpound!”
French fries, Mr. Greg”
And we wiggle our fingers at each other (french fries)! Hello giggles and laughter!
Hit The Floor:
A movement filled greeting where students are greeted and then they get to hit the dance floor (or jump on the trampoline!) We play music and each student gets greeted and then they get show off their dance moves!
(Click to see a detailed blog post about this greeting)
Hello Neighbor:
We have this greeting written on chart paper for us to read.
We read/scream/yell the chant and greet a friend. Then we turn around and sit down! We do this two or three times so everyone gets several greetings.
Sight Word Greeting
This is a simple and fun way to review sight words (or any skill!)
Program labels (regular ol’ address labels) with sight words. (You can even analyze your data and see which words your kiddos need more help with….look at us analyzing data….)
Place a label on each student.
When students greet one another, they greet each other by SIGHT WORD instead of their name!
“Good morning LIKE!”
“Good morning CAN”
Numbers
This greeting is very much like the sight word greeting. You program labels with numbers. Students greet each other by saying the number instead of the name. See…academic standards and content in morning meeting. BAM!
“Good morning 12.”
Good morning 1.”
(Click the picture to see a detailed post about this greeting)
Say Your Name
“Say your name and when you do, we will say it back to you!”
Go around the circle and everyone chants and the student says their name and everyone says their name back to them!
We Are Here
Click here for a detailed post about this greeting!
“We are here! We are here!” It’s an awesome day because (student’s name) is here!”
The student goes around the circle and gives each person a high five!
Follow The Leader
This is a movement filled greeting and if you’re not careful, some serious exercise.
Each child gets a turn. They say “Good Morning! My name is…” and then they do an action (jumping jacks, run in place, clap, etc) and whatever they do, everyone else must follow the leader and do the same action! (Just wait until they start doing pushups…and yes, the teacher must follow the leader too…)
Click here to read a detailed blog post about this greeting1
Shoe Greeting
This one is so much fun and is one of our favorite morning meeting greetings. But…you must be strong. And brave. And courageous.
Students remove one shoe and place all of the shoes in a pile. Teacher says go and students grab a shoe. They find the owner of the shoe and greet them!
(Click here to read a detailed post about this greeting)
Baseball!
I love baseball. It’s the great American past time. And you can get yummy food at the baseball game! So we get to play baseball with this morning meeting greeting!
Students choose a card. The cards say single, double, triple or grand slam. A single is 1 person. A double is 2, a triple is 3 and a grand slam is 4.
If a student gets a grand slam, they count 4 people and greet the person. If they got a single, they would count 1 person and greet that friend!
(Click the picture to see a detailed post about this greeting and get your free baseball greeting cards)
You can also see some examples of our entire morning meeting and find more morning meeting greetings by clicking on the links below!
Also make sure to follow us on Facebook to see our morning meeting greetings LIVE! That’s right! Each Friday we do our Morning Meetings LIVE on Facebook! You can also check out the Facebook page to see all of our LIVE videos from last school year!
If you need morning message ideas, you can check out my morning message bundle on TPT! Over 400 interactive morning messages! This morning message bundle is also available in our TKS Store!
Join Our Newsletter
Subscribe to get our latest content by email.
4 comments
I love this! I am going to start morning meeting with my kids. Thank you for these great ideas, because I was so confused where to start. 🙂 You’re awesome!
Does an th one know the kindergarten chant where they say “in their pocket is a great big kindergarten smile”
[…] Assembly: Begin off with a structured assembly and describe the plan for the afternoon. For some concepts, take a look at The Kindergarten Smorgasboard. […]
[…] out Kindergarten Smorgasboard’s 13 morning meeting greeting […]