Teacher-Tested Tips:

Beginning your Day
Submitted by: Dollucy Grainger, Pre-k teacher
Have a designated place for all items backpacks, folders, library books, and anything else your students may need to turn in. Then have students mark themselves present by moving a clothespin or card with their name on it. Then have the students do an independent activity such as math tubs with specific activities or a writing exercise for 15 minutes. This activity gives you time to check for parent notes, do your roll, and any other morning changes or problems that may come up.

Bell Work
Submitted by: Carol
When the bell rings and the children come in after I meet them at the door, they have work to do. I put a quiz, problem or a review of some work on the chalk board. This is called "Bell Work." The children have a "bell work book" that they complete the work in. They date the page and begin the work as soon as they ente... more »»

Daily Geography
Submitted by: Miley
Since I teach s.s at a middle school as the students come in I have a daily geography question on the board the have to complete before we start the activity of the day. All the questions come straight out of the book!
Grade Level(s): 6-8

Morning Activities
Submitted by: Bradford Tanner
By the time the children enter and announcements are done, we end up losing out on most of our first period. To combat this, I have a variety of different activities that my class does depending on the day... more »»
Grade Level(s): 3-5

Morning Activity
Submitted by: Mer, 4th Grade
To keep the kids in order in the mornings (after we have gone over handwriting all of the letters in cursive), I have gone to several trivia sites. The interesting and appropriate ones I have put on charts or small chart booklets, and I hang one each day for 1st thing in the morning handwriting practice. Not only do they love it, but they learn something also and share them with their parents for an interesting conversation at dinner. Parents love it too.

Morning Bell Work
Submitted by: Amanda Suchodolski, Second Grade
I found a wonderful activity to use for bellwork while I was student teaching. They are called "Drops in the Bucket" from Frog Publications. What it is is a daily review of Language Arts or Math. The key is that it reviews the skills from the previous year. Each day they focuses on skills such as: beginning sounds, hom... more »»

Morning Work
Submitted by: DeeGee, 3rd
After morning assembly on the playground the students enter the classroom and put their things away. They then take out their journal pouch. The pouch includes their journal composition book and journal prompts which I have provided. Approximately 20 journal prompts are given each month. The students cut them out and p... more »»

Morning Work
Submitted by: Judith, 4th
I have the assigned handwriting workbook page and the Daily Analogy which they must explain on the board. They have 15 min. to work on both the Daily Analogy and the handwriting. Then we quickly change to daily math word problems. They have 15 min. to work all 4 word problems. We review all the work they have done, the... more »»

morning work
Submitted by: Cyndi Stahr, 4th
I divide my class into colors. I buy fluorescent colored circle stickers and match with the same color highlighter. I ask each child to have a folder for morning work and randemly stick a colored circle on their folder with their name. In my grade book I highlight each childs' color so I have a quick check of what colo... more »»

Promoting Kindness
Submitted by: mma215
In my class we have what are called RAKS (Random Acts of Kindness). As soon as the students enter in the morning they are to get out their personally decorated RAK journals. They are to then write down all of the random acts of kindness they performed the day before. After they finish writing them all down they are to ... more »»

QQF
Submitted by: Fran, 7th
While my students are arriving and I'm doing attendance, I have them do an activity called QQF. At the beginning of school, I have them purchase a 70 count notebook. Each morning when they arrive I already have on the board a question (Q), a quote (Q), and a fact (F). They have to write this in their QQF notebook. They... more »»