Morning Message Change Up

You may remember this post about my morning message. I started doing this around Feb. and LOVED it! It worked so well in my classroom, but I'm changing it up a little this year. I've been reading about the Buzz Book and how they do the morning message and I like the idea of doing it as a group and having the students engaged in the question. I had just been making my class read the question of the day (which is part of the Reading Street series) and answer it in their journals for morning work while I take snack orders and everything else. So, in order to have a engaging morning message that is discussed in whole group AND have the question of the day answered for morning work, I came up with these, which are free to download for you Reading Street teachers! And if you non-reading street teachers could use them, feel free! These questions are all about animals, so it could go along with a unit on animals.  I'll stop rambling and get to the download now :)

Unit 1 Questions

I plan to laminate these, punch two holes in the top, attach rings, and hang them somewhere in the room. Each morning, I'll have a "Question Flipper" flip to the day's question, ready to be answered for morning work! That's the plan anyways! :) 

Math Message and Peter's Suitcase

Thank you to those of you who shared their morning message ideas. My kids are becoming familiar with our new routine in the mornings and it's going great. I had mentioned before that I wanted to start doing something similar for math. I was a copycat again and used Deanna Jump's title "Think Math". Love that title! We did a money story problem today and I have this one ready for tomorrow. We've been doing problems like this for awhile now, so I don't think my kids will have a problem coming up with the correct answer. I hope not anyways!

We also made suitcases to go along with our reading story this week, which was Peter's Chair. In the story, Peter decides to run away from home because of his new baby sister. He takes with him his toy alligator, a baby picture of himself, and his chair. We did a writing activity that named the things we would have taken if we were Peter. Afterwards, we decided if our choices were smart ones. We learned that taking a playstation, DS, and Wii wasn't all that wise! :) Some of my sweet kids wrote that they would have taken a book....I love that they are developing a love of reading! :) :) 

Morning Chatter

Wow! It's been over a week since my last post! I'm trying to get back in the swing of things as far as school stuff goes since we had Spring Break last week. I didn't go out to my classroom once during the week...can you believe it?? I used Spring Break to clear my head and gear up for this last 9 weeks of school. Sunday night (of course the best ideas come at the last possible minute, right?) I stumbled upon the idea of a morning message on Deanna Jump's blog. I had always hear teachers talking about morning messages, but never really paid that much attention to it. But for some reason, I started reading about Mrs. Jump's and saw that she had posted an adorable pic of the message. She calls her's "Chit Chat". This seemed like a good idea to me, so I decided to use it as a jumpstart for the question of the day that always starts reading. We call ours "Morning Chatter" I have had my kids do this all week. They get their journals out as soon as they unpack and begin writing the answer to the daily question. At the beginning of reading, we take turns sharing our answers. I love this since it combines the oral language/ question of the day part of the reading lesson with writing skills. The kids are lovin' it too! Here's what mine looks like: (sorry for the blurry pic...forgot my camera, so I used my iphone:) )

Do any of you do a morning message?  I'm thinking about starting one for only math to do at the beginning of our math lessons. I'd love to have your ideas!