The one about morning messages for upper elementary

The Morning Messages You Need and Three Reasons why these will change your classroom

Everyone needs to use morning messages in their classroom, upper elementary and beyond. The summer after I had the toughest class, I spent a ridiculous amount of time scouring social media for the best classroom management solution. I was determined not to deal with the same amount of stress the following year.

There were two options I came up with- classroom economy and community meetings. A classroom economy (while it works for some) is infinitely more complex. And it seemed expensive. There were a lot of moving pieces to keep up with. I wasn’t sure that would work for me. I decided to try out the community meetings. We did these once a week in the beginning. And I loved it. The relationships I built with my students made the rest of my classroom management so much easier.

I wanted more ways to build relationships with my students. We had community meetings, which were brief check ins, but something more was needed. Enter morning messages.

Each day, I would scramble to find a quote or writing prompt or dream up an idea for us to use as a whiteboard prompt. My students LOVED them. They were allowed to answer the prompt in the morning or throughout the day if they finished their independent work. Some days, they were so into it, that I planned our work time around giving everyone a chance to answer the question. We had Motivational Mondays, Musical Mondays, Mathematical Mondays. We had Talk It Out Tuesdays, Two for Tuesdays, Word Worm Wednesdays, What If Wednesdays, Thoughtful Thursdays, and Fun Fact Fridays.

I started trying to put up their prompts before I left at the end of the day, or first thing when I came in. It became a struggle to always be planning new messages or finding the prompts. So, I started building my collection in May (late in the year, I know!). Every set includes daily prompts for four weeks, plus five or more Informative Interruptions, dedicated to holidays (silly and meaningful!). It was amazing how dedicating a short time to social-emotional learning daily completely transformed my classroom.

Why do you need these morning messages?

Save your planning time. You don’t need to scramble like I did. Ever since I made these morning messages, I’m so grateful to not have to worry about this part of my day.
Build relationships with your students. While there are other parts of classroom management (routine and structure!) that are equally important, the first layer to this is building relationships. Kids know if you care, and they want to get to know you. These unique prompts will help you do that.
Multiple uses from one resource. I’ve used these in a variety of ways- whiteboard prompts, morning meeting questions, and in Google Classroom, as a check in/journal prompt.

Ready to check it out? Head here now!

In case you’re not convinced, here’s what other teachers have said.

An absolute life-saver this year! I had so many other things to worry about creating and posting; it was great to have one less thing to worry about! Thank you!
-4th grade teacher

I have used this for about a month and it has created a structure beginning of the day that my students look forward to as well as creating more fluency for writing with lots of student buy-in. I can’t wait to start the year next year with this!
-3rd grade teacher

I used this to cheer up my students . They are struggling right now with everything. Most of the children have asked to do this everyday if not twice a day. I have put it on Google Classroom and my parents have appreciated it. I am looking forward to use this resource when school resumes again. Thank you, it is an awesome resource to use.
-4th grade teacher, during the pandemic shutdown

Have I convinced you yet? You’ll get over 300 prompts to use for the entire year, plus you save over $12 by getting the bundle. That’s like getting over 3 months FREE. Click here!