Do you want to spice up your morning routine? Although morning work worksheets, serve their purpose, I have found a numerous amount of other activities that can meet the needs of your students and get your students excited to come to class everyday!! Morning work does a great job spiraling skills, however, you can do that with these ideas too!
Flipped classrooms are wonderful!! A flipped classroom allows students to work at their own pace and you get the chance to meet one-on-one with students and as small groups. Here is a little insight our classes' flipped classroom. Every morning students come in the classroom, unpack, go to the bathroom, turn in homework, and make a lunch choice. When all of these activities are complete they grab a Chromebook and log into their gmail. Now we are not one-to-one at our school. But, I begged my third grade coworkers to allow our class to have the Chromebooks in the morning. (Thank goodness) If you are not one to one you can still do the flipped classroom! Stay tuned to the end of the posts for more ideas!
Anyways back to the flipped classroom ideas! Once they long into their gmail accounts they log into our classroom google account. I have the assignments very clearly labeled for students to independently work on their assignment. A flipped classroom is a video of a lesson followed by an activity. I make a video and an assignment to go with it. Sometimes the assignment is online and sometimes it is paper based. Right now we are working on word problems. Below is an example of one assignment.
Students are to watch a video about word problems with too much information. Students have whiteboards and markers out during the video. The video has students pause the video, complete the problem, and then the video goes through the answers!! Great for immediate feedback. Then students complete the google doc. Students are to create their own word problems with too much information.
Flipped classrooms are great to incorporate for morning routines! This is a time to get in extra practice for any skill, students can't wait to come right in to class and get working, and you can work with small groups!
Check out our classroom you tube channel for FREE videos!
Have students work with words! This is wayyyy easier prep for you and kids love it! Have a work with words bucket of tool readily available. Students will come in and immediately get started practicing their words. To incorporate technology you can have some students use spelling city to practice their words! Now you do not need to find time to practice words during the day!
Here is our work with words bin.
In our bin we have lots of tools! Play dough
Stamps and stamp pads
Scrabble titles
Bendaroos
and a keyboard! This is a class favorite. Good keyboarding practice too!
Have a special morning journal!
This is a month journal packet which we are totally in love with in Ms. Schrage's third grade. You may have a writing prompt on the board for friends who have a hard time picking something to write about but ultimately they can decide who to write about. These great monthly writing packets come with space for a picture as well! This way students can write and then add a great picture to go with their writing. We took it one step farther and we made a grammar rubric to go with our journal packets. As a class, we decided on what we should have in our journals. Once they have completed their writing, students grade themselves using the rubric. Then, I grade the journals using the same rubric. I leave a little note. They can't wait to read the note the next time they write!
We even peer edit once a week with our journals!
Get your students engaged in math centers first thing in the morning! We have a few different math center choices in the morning. I absolutely love Hope King's month math centers. This allows a spiral review all year long of skills. Also EASY differentiation!
During math centers, students can choose to do Hope King's folder choices, independently or with a partner. Students can play kaboom. To incorporate technology, some students are able to choose math on the computer. This allows me to meet one on one with students and with groups as well!
These are not from Hope King....I made my own to fit the needs of my students, but kept her idea. These are not for sale :(
This is a new activity we are doing in our classroom. We are in love!! The discussion post we use after we finish our flipped classroom. Students finish their flipped classroom activity. Then, students move onto our discussion post. Once a week Students are required to read an article of my choice. I get my articles online from Newsela, Tween tribune, and dogonews. Students read the article. Then I make a google form for comprehension questions. After they complete the comprehension questions, students answer a question, in a paragraph. I make up the question. This is the discussion portion. Students answer the question. Then, students are required to comment on two of their classmates's posts. Here is an example of our discussion post!
Again we access this through classroom google but not mandatory!
You see here the google forms of comprehension questions and the article on the bottom. Then students posts a comment to answer the question. The question they are answering is" Describe the four things a plant needs to live." They are to answer this question in at least four sentences.
Then students are to comment on one of their classmates' posts.
This is meeting soo many standards!! Collaborating, researching, and writing!
Lots of these ideas can be modified. For example, if you are not one to one, these activities can still be done! For example, you could do all 5 of these activities. Group your students into five "ish" groups. Have students go to one activity a day!
I hope we gave you a few more ideas other than just using that boring oh morning work worksheet!
