The Morning Meeting book reads well and it provides a lot of research to back up the effectiveness of Morning Meetings (MM). The book includes many examples of how to implement MM in classes of all different grades, including middle school in the 2nd edition. The extensive appendix provides sample greetings and a list of group activities. There are other books of greetings and messages that I'm curious about, but I'm going to start with just this book to see if it's enough or if I should supplement.

My only complaint about this book is that I tend to want more practicality than theory when I read teacher books. I was on board with MM in theory from the get go, I wanted more real life examples of what it looked like in a real classroom. It did provide many examples, but I think the book weighed a little too heavy on the theory side and repeated the some things over and over again that could have been said once.

Overall:
It was an easy read and looks like it'll be a great resource I'll be pulling from throughout the school year. The book is organized intuitively and I highly recommend it to all of my fellow teachers. ( )The Morning Meeting Book is an invaluable guide that includes both the rationale and strategies to set the daily routine of morning meeting in place. It is chock-full of ideas to help build a caring community and create a climate of trust in a classroom. The book is highly organized, presenting real-life scenarios and answering teacher questions about every aspect of a morning meeting. The Appendices at the end include many games, activities and ideas that make the book a handy reference tool that can be referred to again and again. ( )
A great resource. Many teachers do a morning meeting in some form or another, but this can be a great way to structure the meeting. It is worth looking at the sequencing. Also fun is the daily news and announcements. But most important is being willing to take the time to make this a priority. Speaking and Listening skills practiced daily makes it worth it, especially with ELLs in a classroom. ( )

This is my second time reading this book. It was first recommended to me by my professors in my teaching credential program. I read it earlier in my career and struggled to implement it in my classroom because I couldn't validate my reason for taking away instructional minutes from the curriculum and state standards to build classroom community.

8 years later, I know what it is like to use almost every single instructional minute to teach our state standards every day but, I also know how hard it is to deal with upper grade (5th graders) students when they go through their many issues. Bullying is an issue that is garnering a lot of media attention lately and rightly so, schools are implementing more and more training for teachers on how to handle bullying with their students. At one of our trainings at the end of our school year, one of our teachers shared about class meetings and I immediately remembered reading The Morning Meeting Book. Her presentation really moved me and inspired to work on building a better classroom community in my class for the upcoming school year.

So with more experience under my belt, I am ready to implement Morning Meetings in my classroom next year in a wholehearted attempt to build classroom community. I can teach the standards all day long and cram it down their throats, but if my students don't care about each other, then can I really live with myself as an educator? For many years, I was confused about how to go about this because of the high-stakes, test-driven environment that plagues the education system today. I have proven myself as a teacher with students that perform well on the state tests, I need something more than that and I'm ready to make that stand now.

The Morning Meeting book reads well and it provides a lot of research to back up the effectiveness of Morning Meetings (MM). The book includes many examples of how to implement MM in classes of all different grades, including middle school in the 2nd edition. The extensive appendix provides sample greetings and a list of group activities. There are other books of greetings and messages that I'm curious about, but I'm going to start with just this book to see if it's enough or if I should supplement.

My only complaint about this book is that I tend to want more practicality than theory when I read teacher books. I was on board with MM in theory from the get go, I wanted more real life examples of what it looked like in a real classroom. It did provide many examples, but I think the book weighed a little too heavy on the theory side and repeated the some things over and over again that could have been said once.

Overall:
It was an easy read and looks like it'll be a great resource I'll be pulling from throughout the school year. The book is organized intuitively and I highly recommend it to all of my fellow teachers. ( )

A great resource. Many teachers do a morning meeting in some form or another, but this can be a great way to structure the meeting. It is worth looking at the sequencing. Also fun is the daily news and announcements. But most important is being willing to take the time to make this a priority. Speaking and Listening skills practiced daily makes it worth it, especially with ELLs in a classroom.

The Morning Meeting Book is an invaluable guide that includes both the rationale and strategies to set the daily routine of morning meeting in place. It is chock-full of ideas to help build a caring community and create a climate of trust in a classroom. The book is highly organized, presenting real-life scenarios and answering teacher questions about every aspect of a morning meeting. The Appendices at the end include many games, activities and ideas that make the book a handy reference tool that can be referred to again and again. ( )