Effective Morning Routines and Classroom Greetings

Welcome to today's podcasts of the teaching toolbox. I'm Brittany and I'm here with Ellie.

Hey there.

And today we'll be talking all about classroom greetings and effective classroom routines for beginning the day with middle school students. These routines can help set the tone for the rest of the day and ensure that students are focused and ready to learn. We'll also chat about routines to begin your classes. So let's get started.

Let's start out with some classroom greetings. Brittany, I know you have an amazing blog post about the power of classroom greetings. So can you share how you greeted your students and why greeting them is so important?

Well, we had to stand at our door and greet students as they came in. And so as a teacher, I think it's really important to greet students and make connections with them. Because you get to know whether or not they're okay that day, or whether they're having a bad day, you can just see it as they come up to you. And whether or not they have stress from the morning. Or if they're just happy and ready to go. You can see it in their face, you can see it and how they, how they meet you, you can see it and how they present their hand to you. Whether it's limp, or you know, they're just not eager to, to meet you that day. And you can you can feel it in, in that connection that you make at that door.

So did you shake their hands every day?

I gave them options. And that's in that blog post, they had a choice between shaking my hand, a fist bump, a high five, a hug. So I gave them several different options. I did start out the year with a handshake because I felt like it was important to establish with kids, how do you how do you properly shake a hand and learn that skill of shaking hands and, you know, having it be firm, but not too firm. And you know, what's the proper length of shaking a hand. And, and all the all of that. So I did teach them how to shake a hand. And then after a few weeks, maybe a month, month and a half of doing that, then I presented them other options. And by then they also had enough time with me as to feel comfortable enough to maybe do a hug aside, you know, a side hug, or or, you know, do a fist bump or that sort of thing. So we had built more of those relationships and rapport, to establish more connection. But I always felt that that morning greeting, really let you know, from the get go, how students felt coming into that room, and whether or not you needed to have a quick meeting with them, or maybe call a counselor, or that sort of thing.

I also greeted kids, I didn't use handshakes. But we did stand in the hallway in the mornings as students came in. So as they were going to their lockers, you know, they would need to walk past me in order to get to their lockers, you know, so it was, you know, just a verbal greeting most mornings, you know, good morning, how are you that type of thing. And then when students walked into my classroom for each class period, kind of the same thing standing in the doorway. And so you know, saying hello to them as they came in. And you're right, it gives you a good measure, kind of like taking a temperature of how they're feeling that day.

Yeah.

Are they looking at the ground as they walk by you? Are they looking up? are they smiling? Are they not? You can see the concern in their eyes,

or do they kind of rush past you?

Right? So that's really important.

Yeah, I just thought of this. As we were talking twice, I was able to catch a student who I ended up needing to call Health and Human Services about because of that morning greeting.

Oh, wow.

And so had I not done those morning greetings. I might not have seen or noticed the physical abuse that they had been through that morning. Wow. So Wow. So it does really pay off sometimes not in the most pleasant ways. But you know, it really helped those students.

Right? Absolutely. Yeah. And for all students, it gives them you know, a feeling of worthiness. You're taking the time to say hello to them that you notice them, you see them, it makes them perhaps feel a little bit more confident going into their day knowing that somebody thinks they're important.

Yes, I totally agree with that. So once the student got into the room, did you have a special routine that you used with your students? Yes,

Yes, I have very specific routines for just about every part of the day. So I think that routines are just so important to help foster a good learning environment, and to help students know exactly what to expect. So from the moment they walked in my door, those routines were helpful to them, I believe. So a lot of my routines came from the book, How to be an effective teacher, the first days of school by Harry and Rosemary Wong. Fortunately, I read that very early in my teaching career when I was still teaching elementary school. So I used a lot of the things in that book when I taught elementary school. And then when I moved to middle school, I just adjusted those, you know, the things that I was using to make it easier in middle school. So the greeting, of course, was part of the routine being in the hallway when they came in to greet them. And then their morning routine was on a poster, I think I've mentioned posters before. And that included unpacking, going to their locker, making sure they had all their materials for the first several class periods. And then they would go sign in on our attendance clipboard, that was one of my favorite things, I loved my attendance clipboard, it made attendance so much easier for me, you know, I'd have every student on the list. And then I think I would fit about a month worth of dates on there. And so they would come in, and they would initial that they were there. And there were times that I would have some students take that clipboard and make sure that people were signed in before it came to me. And then I would double check it, and then do my attendance on the computer. But that made attendance so much easier for me. But that was part of their routine was to come in and sign in in that way and then sharpen their pencils. If they had any notes or papers, they had to put them in my pink tray, because there were many color trays, but the pink tray was the notes. And then they would begin their morning work. And I give students a copy of that morning routine and expectations on the first day of school, along with the other routines that we follow in other class periods. And that way they understand that they are important because we've got them in print. And they can refer to them if they happen to forget what they were. And then we also make sure to practice them. For the first couple weeks of school. We practice those routines. We go over them every day, making sure that they understand them. If they have any questions they get answered. And it just becomes part of their their day. How about you? What did you do in the mornings for homeroom?

I have a question for you first. Did you ever find the class clown or whatever? signing into your clipboard for multiple days? ahead of time?

No. Okay, maybe like maybe once, but then I'd have I'd wait it back out again. But no, it did not happen on a regular basis. Okay. It may have been a couple instances, but nothing regular.

Oh, great.

No, I could see students doing that though. Yeah. And then they would have to be waited out again. Yeah. Okay. And I only use that for my homeroom. I did not use that for every single class period. Only for my homeroom.

Yeah, my students also, they didn't have a poster on the wall, but they had a little mini poster taped on their desk. And on it, it had what they needed to do each day to get going for the day. And we had basically kind of the same objectives that you did unpack, you know, sign in there sign in was pick their lunch for the day, though. And that was on a big chart, and they would just pick their lunch with, like Velcro or some teachers had I used little Velcro icons. Other teachers had like, just pencil, you know, tick marks kind of thing.

We did that in elementary school, but we didn't do that in middle school. Yeah, yeah. I use closed pins. I think like they moved their clothes pin from one place to another in elementary school.

Yeah. So they would unpack our lockers were in the classroom. So they would just unpack into their locker, put their jacket on their desk chair and get ready, get out the supplies that were asked for for the morning period until we had a big transition period. And then they would start working on their morning task, which I usually had somewhere between four to 10 different problems up on the board which were review of what we had been doing recently. So they would start working in their morning journal on those problems,

and that was your homeroom students.

Well, those were my, those were my students who I taught the majority. Okay. of the subjects to. We did rotate for history, science and language arts. Okay. And so I would see other students during the day for those classes.

But you got to keep your homeroom students basically for the first period,

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I

I would keep them usually until the afternoon.

Oh, wow. Okay.

And they, they would go to other teachers for specials, such as, you know, pe music, Spanish. And then in the afternoon, we would do our big rotations, where I would teach history over and over and over again. Okay, and then they would rotate for Language Arts and Science. Gotcha.

Gotcha. Yes, some years, I had my homeroom students as my first period. And it was different over the years, because some years I taught language arts and math some years when you're I taught language arts, math and science. And then some years I taught just math. I think I had time where I taught language arts and science, too. So some of those years, my homeroom students stayed with me for the first period, some of the years, some of them stayed with me and others didn't. And then some years, you know, they all left. So it was very different. And so I would have to alter what they were going to do during homeroom time, depending on what that situation was. So in some cases, it might have been just silent reading. If they stayed with me, if they all stayed with me, then it might might be something else that I would happen to. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

No, you're good. It's so interested in learning about how our systems are similar and different at the same time.

Our listeners don't know. But we're not in the same state.

No, not even close, nowhere near each other.

So our school systems are definitely different. So then how did you start your class? If you already had your homeroom students with you, then how did you transition from homeroom to say, your first period? Or was that pretty seamless, because they were already working on something,

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actually,

actually, most of the time, our students would only have 15 to 20 minutes with us. And then they would immediately start special classes, oh, like gym or music or whatever, because they felt the school felt that the littlest kids like kindergarteners and first graders needed the fundamental classes like spelling and grammar, and that they needed those first in the morning, when they were, you know, most awake and most ready. And so they usually had their special classes at the end of the day. And so, sixth graders always had their special classes first, because they could tolerate English and, you know, math and all that later in the day. And so, we would usually have our kids for 15-20 minutes. And then immediately, we would take them to special classes, they would do their warm ups, we might have time to go over them. But we would do our lunch count, do our attendance, maybe talk a little bit about how the day was going, you know how the mornings going, how are you? How's everybody feeling? Does anybody have any questions about homework that they had last night? Does anybody have a funny story? They want to share that sort of thing. And then we would line up and out the door, we would go. So. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So we had our homeroom period, which was maybe 20 minutes by the time home officially started, you know that if you weren't in that at that moment, then you were late. So it might have been 15 to 20, then, and then they had four core classes, which were like 44 minutes each period, and then lunch, and then another core class, and then they would have their specials for two periods. And then we had a ninth period study hall type of thing. So yeah, so we would go from homeroom to whatever class so if I was teaching language arts, I had a warm up for every class no matter what I was teaching. So if it was language arts, they did their pure language, daily language, if it was when I taught science we had I had like a daily oral science book from way back and so put a couple science questions on the board so they would have something to work on. And then when I taught math, we did their daily their spiral review, which I actually called mental gymnastics. At the time. I thought it was fun. So then I would call it mg for short. But they always said that so they knew that routine. We always had something like that to start Again, that was something we practiced over and over the first couple weeks of school, when you come in, this is what you do, they had that in, in the sheets that I handed out that they could keep in their binders, that they had those routines in their binder. Part of their routine also was to hand in the notes or things like that, for that class period, if they had notes or papers to put into the pink tray, they did that. And then if they had any notes in their assignment books, from parents, that would happen at the very beginning of class, and that I always walked around the class while they were doing their morning work. So they could let me know that as I was walking around,

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I

I didn't walk around too much in the morning, I mainly was behind my desk doing the the attendance and the lunch count and stuff until I got all that done. And then I went up to the front and took questions or whatever.

But well, that was like once the classes actually started. Yeah, I could do the walk. And yeah,

that's great. So for those of you out there, you know, hopefully, you've got some routines and systems in place. But if not, you know, hopefully, you've got some ideas you're thinking about after listening to this, you know, do you have a tray for notes? Do you have a system in place that you're having the kids follow? Do you have some guided review that they're doing or some questions that they're answering?

Do you have an attendance system?

Do you have a lunch system, that sort of thing. So think of some things that you might want to change or put in place to help your students know what to do every morning, you want to form routines and habits within students, because it not only helps them now but it's going to help them in the long run in life in general.

For sure. Yep. And be sure to check out the show notes because we'll have various blog posts in there are that have more details for you. So make sure to check that out. And we will see you next time.

Have a good day.