Group Soup-A Wonderful Way To Start Your School Day

13 March 2016 / 8 comments

Stories.

Songs.

Surveys.

Book Sales

Teacher-To-Student Conversations.

These are the ingredients that get mixed into my "Morning Meeting," an integral part of my daily classroom routine.

Step into my "kitchen" now while I explain how to best cook up a worthy combination of 
learning fun and establish a positive classroom culture.



Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options



Despite the maddening emphasis on using every single minute in our school schedule for rigorous data-gathering, skill-drill, and test prep, I continue to close my door at 9:20 a.m. and call my students to the carpet for our morning serving of "Group Soup."  I call it my "Little House on the Prairie" time.  We use no technology.  We sing familiar folk songs.  We share news about what the tooth fairy brought last night and adventures with new puppies.  We read favorite stories.  They talk. I listen. We are like a family from long ago, gathered around a fireplace or the dinner table.  If you ask my second graders, they will tell you it is their favorite time of our day. It is mine too.

Speaking.

Listening.

Laughter.

Singing.

Thinking.

Writing.

These are all flavorful elements that are products of the focused, collaborative, comfortable, and authentic activities included in our daily Group Soup.  They are the perfect way to start the day, and set the tone for all of the learning that follows.

In order to host an effective Group Soup, you must make room for and create a large space where your students can sit comfortably on the floor.


Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options



Our morning meeting follows our "bell-ringer" work so using chants, cheers, and familiar call-response phrases helps my students transition from their desks to our gathering area.  One of their favorite signals is when I use my megaphone and say.....

"Calling all second grade friends!  Calling all second grade friends!
Please report to the carpet!  Do not pass go!  Do not collect $200 dollars!"

Yes, it is silly.  But it is effective and gets their attention!



Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options



I then wait for them in my Junie B. Jones rocking chair with a favorite picture book to share, with my guitar waiting in the wings to lead our daily sing-a-long.  The stories are usually by a featured author or illustrator like Jan Brett, Mo Willems, or Patricia Polacco.  The songs are usually movement-based to get our wiggles out and reinforce rhyming skills like Raffi's Shake Your Sillies Out and Willaby Wallaby.  Sometimes we write our own "piggyback" style songs based on our current theme or unit of study.  Next week we will change "I've Been Working On The Railroad" to "I've Been Looking For A Leprechaun" as we get ready to enjoy lots of St. Patrick's Day fun! 



Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options


I also try to incorporate a survey of some kind using our "Thinking Chart" to gather student opinions and ideas for us to discuss and analyze.  Nothing like integrating Math graphing skills whenever possible, right?  Student responses to our "Question of the Day" served as a springboard to our Social Studies lesson about American heroes like Amelia Earhart and Sally Ride.  We then compared their character traits to those of the fictional superheroes we read about in comic books and see on T.V.


Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options



Before we wrap up our Group Soup time and move on to Word Work, I act as a "scribe" while the students dictate our Daily News.  We talk about grammar rules, descriptive words, transitional words, parts of speech, and correct format as we write, and then re-read it together for fluency practice and expression. Students then take turns taking it home to share it with their families.



Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options



The last ingredient of our Group Soup time is a "book commercial," where I pull a picture book from our "Teacher Favorites" shelf and preview the pictures and plot.  After I am done "selling the story," I pull a student name stick and they have the honor of putting the book in their Read To Self box to enjoy later!  Believe me, the child whose name is drawn acts and feels like they've won a million dollars in a lottery drawing!



Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options



If you'd like to begin your classroom day the "Group Soup" way, I've created a set of planning sheets to help you get started.  The sample here maps out my plan for Monday of this coming week, where we will begin our exploration of all things leprechaun-related!



Deliver rich content and build a collaborative classroom community during your Morning Meeting with reading, writing, and music activities designed to engage and excite your primary grade students.  Options


Click {HERE} to grab your  FREE "recipe" cards!









As always, thank you for allowing me to share my story!   

May today's post remind you of the importance of stepping away from the "fray" of your school day and starting it in a relaxed and joyful way!

Your students need and deserve it, and so do you!

Continue to hold a song in your heart, keep calm, and teach on!








8 comments:

  1. What a wonderful way to establish the routines for the day, focus your students, and make connections! Thanks for sharing a window into your classroom. Love it!
    Carla

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    1. Thanks for taking a peek into Room 2, Carla! I'd be content to read and sing and write from my rocking chair all day if possible!
      ~Jennifer

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  2. Love the name "Group Soup!" I also love Morning Meeting. Great book idea - I'll try that one out. Thank you!

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    Replies
    1. Everything is better when it rhymes, right Susan! I hope your students enjoy the story! Thanks so much for stopping by!
      ~Jennifer

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  3. This is such a great reminder of the importance of the morning meeting! Sometimes, I get busy and want to skip it to get the "stuff" I think I "need to get through." I love my morning meeting time.

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    1. I hear you, Susan! Sometimes small group pull-out or intervention times put a dent in our time for Group Soup, and the kids will note what we had to skip because of it. They enjoy it as much as I do!
      ~Jennifer

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Wow, I love your ideas! I work with a lot of ESL students, so getting them talking, interacting, and connected is really important. Nicely integrated activities; I will be using this tomorrow morning!

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