Have you ever felt like your morning classroom routines are not, in fact, routines? I have. They were more like my class and I hopping on the struggle bus and headed to Chaos City. 🚌 🏙
After finally determining that enough is enough, I created a morning work that would consistently focus on critical content and build a routine for my students (and me!). Then, I could move on to focusing on the rest of my curriculum and teaching.
So here is why I believe in this morning work so much:
1// Routine! Your students will know exactly what to do when they come in each morning. You can focus on all those beginning the day teacher duties like attendance, collecting permission slips, and checking notes from parents. (and any unexpected morning mishaps)
2// Critical Content – Rest assured your students aren’t just completing “busy work.” They are covering critical content areas + curriculum you might not get address otherwise. (I’m looking at you, Language Standards.)
3// Short & Sweet – The morning work shouldn’t take students longer than 10 minutes. The tasks are rich, but they are presented in digestible chunks. Plus, the whole week is covered in one sheet. That means fewer copies!
What is included in the morning work?
The ELA Morning Work is focused on the Common Core Standards. Each day has a thematic structure to cover language standards (that we often miss!) and enhance vocabulary and comprehension skills.
Meaningful Monday: Monday is focused on making meaning. Tasks will focus on synonyms, antonyms, vocabulary words, context clues, and making meaning in a short amount of text.
Text Structure Tuesday: Tuesdays will have a paragraph related to the time of year (i.e. Earth Day, Thanksgiving, etc.) or a Science, Social Studies concept. Text structure is one of those tricky concepts that just takes a LOT of practice. That’s why we have a full day dedicated to Text Structure. Students will answer a question related to text structure, main idea, or author’s perspective.
Wordy Wednesday: Wednesday is all about working with words. Tasks include spelling, shades of meaning, homophones, roots, etc.
Throwback Thursday: On Thursdays, students work with grammar and conventions. I like to think of this as throwing it back to when grammar used to be at the forefront of our Language Arts instruction, but now we’re just trying to get it in when we can. (Which is another reason why you will love this morning work!)
Figurative Friday: Have you ever wondered how to get more poetry into your upper elementary classroom? Well, I’ve got the answer for you. Figurative Friday tasks include working with various types of figurative language including similes, metaphors, personification, and idioms. Many Fridays include a poem. Imagine if your students read a poem almost every single week?
Each monthly morning work contains 4-5 weeks of morning work for that month. The morning work is available for the following grade levels:
Or you can grab the ELA + Math Morning Work Bundles:
Managing Your Morning Work
Along the way, many teachers have reached out about how to organize and manage their morning work routine. back to share with you some organization tips for managing your morning work routine. And let me tell you- this girl learned the hard way. As more and more teachers have been using the morning work, one question I get asked A LOT is…
❝How do you have your students organize their morning work?
So I’m going to break it down for you. These are tips that I’ve learned and have also been shared with me by other teachers using the morning work.
✅ Option 1// Copy the whole month and make a packet. I spent SO many Monday mornings (because I wanted to leave early on time Friday afternoon) at the copy machine trying to get my morning work ready for the week. What a headache!
Finally, I started using my noggin’ and said to myself, “Self, you know you are going to use these every week, every month. Why not copy the whole month at once so you don’t have to worry about it?” Well, that makes sense. But also, “Why not make a packet, so you can eliminate some of the papers that are coming in AND since there are 5 weeks, it can be a nice early finisher task.”
I haven’t always been the best manager of time and organization, but I’ve learned the hard way. I am all about finding ways to make our jobs easier and batching tasks such as this. Let me tell you – it sure feels good not to be standing at the copier on Monday mornings anymore.
✅ Option 2// Use a composition notebook.? If you are more of a notebook kind of teacher, think about keeping a morning work notebook. You can shrink down the pages to 80-85% and then have students glue them into their notebook. This option may depend on your students because the fonts shrink and may be too small for your students.
✅ Option 3// Create a folder or binder where students keep their morning work. These binder covers can also be used to keep their morning work throughout the year in a binder. Or you can just separate between the ELA + Math Morning Work. (picture below)
✅ Option 4// Go Digital! The morning work is being converted each month to a digital format. So now you can assign the morning work in Google Classroom, Canvas, Seesaw, or other learning platforms. The morning work is in Google Slides and interactive.
The reason I’ve wanted to share this resource with you is that for a long time, I had ZERO morning routine. I was always scrambling to grab some random workbook page for Math, having my students finish up something we left off on the day before, or expect that ALL of my students would be able to start the day by simply coming in and reading independently.
For the past few years, I’ve been working on a morning work that:
- Covers grammar skills that you might not get to
- Covers critical content in digestible bites
- Is formatted in a way that students ENJOY their task
- Pulls in Science and Social Studies topics for the grade level
Of course, I think this morning work is the best thing since sliced bread, ? but I wanted to share with you what other teachers are saying about the morning work:
Shop the morning work:
You can also find these on TpT:
Each monthly morning work contains 4-5 weeks of morning work for that month. The morning work is available for the following grade levels:
Or you can grab the ELA + Math Morning Work Bundles:
