5 Morning Meeting Activities Your Students Will Be Begging You to Play Everyday!
I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, but coming up with new ideas of activities for Morning Meeting can feel exhausting! I truly feel that I have found some of the best games to play with my students that they genuinely love to play every single week. The best activities I use in my classroom for my morning meeting and community building time come from asking my co-workers their favorite games and many of them come from the games I played growing up in summer camp. I personally have a pretty short morning meeting time in our schedule, so I like to prioritize that time with playing games that help build community within my class. Dedicating time to a morning meeting each day will truly help bring your class closer together and is SO worth it. I promise that these 5 morning meeting games are easy to implement and your students will be begging to play them every day!
Activity #1 - Name That Artist
This game is SUPER simple and easy to play! All you need is a way to play music for your students to hear and to split your students into teams. I typically split my students into two teams by walking around the room and giving them a “1” or a “2” to assign them their team. You could do smaller teams if that works better for you and your class. I have them sit with their team somewhere around the classroom. You’re going to play a song over the speaker so that everyone can hear it. The first team to stand up, raise their hand and tell you the ARTIST or BAND of the song, gets a point for their team! They are not allowed to call out the artist/band unless you’ve called on them. If the person you called on gets the artist incorrect, that’s okay! Their team can continue to make guesses. This game can go as long or as short as you like. Sometimes, I’ll have students write down their favorite artists/bands on a sticky note and I’ll go through those sticky notes to pick the songs. The way their faces light up when you play their favorite artist is just priceless! Students learn so much about each other in this game and it’s always so much fun.
Activity #2 - Captain’s Coming
This one is hands down one of my students’ all time favorite games that we play! All students should stand up and stand around in your morning meeting space. This for me is typically my front carpet near the SmartBoard. The game will start with students “mingling” around. This just means they are walking around, talking with each other, etc. My students personally love to sing a song while they’re walking around. They are waiting for you (the captain) to give them a command. The point of the game is to be the last 2 students standing. Here are the list of commands that I like to use in this game:
Front of the boat/back of the boat: students just run/walk to that side of the boat quickly.
Dead fish: students stop where they are, fall to the ground, and act like a dying fish. This one is hilarious!
“Insert number here” people rowing: students stop where they are, find that number of people to make a group, sit down in a circle or in a line and pretend they are rowing in a boat together. Whichever students do not have a group are out and go back to their seats. I normally say “3 people rowing!” or “4 people rowing!” You can do whatever number you want.
Captains Coming: When they hear this command, they have to completely freeze, turn their body to face the captain, stand up straight and salute their captain. They CANNOT move until the captain says “at ease.” You can try to trick them by saying other commands to try and get them to leave their “salute” position. If they move before you say “at ease,” those students are out and go back to their seats.
Mingle, Mingle, Mingle: If I start singing “mingle, mingle, mingle” students should go back to the meeting spot and start mingling again. I typically do this when I’m about to use the “# people rowing” command.
Do-si-do with a Partner: Students should link arms with a partner and do-si-do around in a circle. If they don’t have a partner or are too slow to find a partner, they are out and go back to their seats.
This game is so much fun and students love coming up with their own ideas for commands and sharing them with you! It’s a fast paced game where students have to quickly follow the commands and try to be the last 2 students in the game!
Activity #3 - Fishbowl
This one takes just a LITTLE more prep but is SO worth it. My 5th graders absolutely love this game and we play it at least once a week! Before my students come in for the day, I put out 5 small pieces of paper on each student’s desk. I write the directions on the board for what they should do with their slips of paper. Students should write 1 name on each piece of paper. The names can be celebrities, singers, actors, tv show characters, book characters, athletes, historical figures, etc. Once students are done, they should fold their pieces of paper in half and put them in your bin. All the pieces of paper will be in the bin and that’s what you’ll use for the game. You’ll split your class into teams. I typically do 2 teams, but you could do smaller teams if that works better for you and your class. Starting with team #1, they will choose one student to come up to the bin. They have 1 minute to start pulling a paper out of the bin and describing to their team WHO’s name is written on the paper without saying any of the words that are on the paper. As soon as their team guesses it correctly, they put it down on the table (not back in the bin) and they grab another paper and continue doing the same thing. Their team gets a point for every name they guess correctly. They should try and get through as many as they can in that 1 minute timer. If students pull out a name that they do not know, I let them put it back and grab another one. Only their team should be guessing, not the other team. Once team #1’s timer is done, you’ll count up their points and then it is time for team #2’s person to come up and repeat the same process. You can continue this for as long as you want! Whichever team has the most points at the end of the game wins! This game is so fun because it’s always so interesting and funny to see what names they put in the bin. I typically keep this bin of names somewhere in my closet or near my desk, so that anytime we want to play it, the names are already prepped and ready. This game can be easily changed to include places or vocabulary terms for your current unit! So fun!
Activity #4 - Follow the Leader
For this game, students should sit in a circle in your meeting area. You’ll pick one person to be the “detective” and they will go out in the hallway while you choose the “leader” of the game. Once the detective is in the hallway and can’t hear you, you’re going to point to one student to be the “leader/motion changer.” This student will start a motion, such as clapping or patting their legs and everyone else in the circle will copy the exact motion of the leader. Once the motion has started, you can have the detective come back in and stand in the middle of the circle. The detective will walk around and try to figure out who is the “leader” that is changing the motion. The leader is allowed to change the motion whenever they want. As soon as they change their motion, everyone else should change their motion as well to match the leader. The leader typically should change the motion while the detective’s back is to them. The detective gets three guesses. Typically, I then have the leader become the new detective for the next round. I always try to remind my students to not stare directly at the leader so that it’s not obvious to the detective! This game is super fun and requires NO prep!
Activity #5 - Categories
For this game, students are going to sit in a circle in your meeting area. You’re going to pick a category such as cereals, sports teams, colors, ice cream flavors, etc. The goal is to try and make it all the way around the circle with each person saying a different thing that goes with whatever the category is! This one is super fun because students love to help you pick the category and love coming up with their own ideas for categories. It’s so fun to see how creative students can get and it’s a really attainable game for everyone to participate in!
How do you feel about morning meetings?Join Hope, Wade, and Chris as they sit with Montana to explain their perspective on if morning meetings are worth it or a waste of time.
