Morning Work

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2001 : November : 4

Morning Work
By 5th grade

This is in response to the person who asked if it was unrealistic to demand silence in the morning. Second grade seems so different than fifth. In fifth grade, we can count on the morning to have control because the kids
are kind of tired. Maybe in second grade their still so little that they get up so early.
Even in fifth grade, however, I have been working very hard to crack down on morning misbehaviors. One of the most eye-opening conversations I've had recently was with a veteran teacher who said, "Most behavior problems occur when you're distracted." It's true. Look at any time you're trying

to fill out a nurse's pass, talk to a visitor, locate something on a shelf, etc., etc., etc. That's when it gets noisy because the kids know you're not focusing on their behavior. The morning is the worst time for being distracted because you're trying to deal with so many other daily administrative duties.

During these tasks I have tried very hard to crack down on thinks like side chatting, calling out, and wandering around the room. If you do something, it's an automatic name on the board and then a check. My hope is that this starts out the day with an, "I'm not going to tolerate this," attitude.

So what I'm saying is that I do NOT think it's terrible to demand silence in the morning, because I do. For the primary grades I have seen some really cute ways to lessen your own personal distractions in the morning so you can focus on behavior. You have probably seen these as well. You know, every kid in the room has a clothespin with his or her name on it. When the kid comes he/she takes the clothespin and moves it over to one of two coathangers (cafeteria or bringing) for lunch count. This way the leftover clothespin kids are absent, and you can count the number of "cafeteria" clothespins for the lunch count. A responsible kid can even help you by saying who's absent and how many cafeteria pins there are. I have seen another method where each kid moved a folder containing homework into cafeteria or bringing boxes. Then you take care of homework, lunch count, and attendance, and it's the kind of thing kids love.

About morning work ... I have found that it's a mistake not to do it. We all have announcements and passing out/collecting forms to take care of, but save them for AFTER the morning work assignments are done. The kids will welcome a break from work at this time anyway. If you just have kids come in without having something for them to work on (even if they do get interrupted by the PA system), they sit there waiting for you to tell them what to do, and then they talk if you're busy waiting for all the kids to file in or waiting for sharpening or talking to a parent/administrator or taking roll or doing any of those other crazy morning things.

I have done many things wrong so far, but I have had A LOT of success with morning journals. I teach fifth grade, and I know somebody was asking about focus questions. Mine aren't quite so deep as the biology questions, but I have found a plethora of sources of journal topics. Sometimes I make up topics (favorite food/book/movie/TV show/pet, what makes you happy/sad, what are you doing over the weekend ... generic things like that). There are also journal books I use that have great topics. You can get them at teacher supply stores or maybe even off the Internet. Another good source of topics has been the curriculum. Sometimes I have responses to the stories we read or writing stories using vocabulary we're studying. Other times the social studies book has that one thought-provoking question at the end of the section/chapter that generates a whole paragraph. Finally, you can sometimes get cute ideas from year-round-type teacher idea books. You know, the kind that have, "Activities for every month." They often have interesting holidays like National Dessert Month or the anniversary of the first postcard being sent. You can usually generate a topic out of these occasions. And when all else fails, do a free choice journal.