Do you do Morning meetings? I am a huge fan of The Responsive Classroom. (www.responsiveclassroom.org) In fact our school started using this approach eight years ago and it has made a definite impact on how we work with kids. One of the first things we do each day is Morning Meetings. In Morning Meetings we start with a greeting, a share, an activity and a morning message. I think this is a great way to start the day and naturally leads to building relationships with your students and between your students. 
Let’s talk about Sharing….taking the time each day to share is a great way to get to know your students. Every Monday I make sure I put aside 10 minutes for the students to share one sentence about what they did this weekend. We sit in a circle and share one at a time. I find that this has an extra bonus of helping kids learn how to summarize! After everyone shares, we go around the circle again and have the opportunity to ask a classmate a question or comment on something said. I find this teaches kids to care about each other and builds friendships and also empathy.
Then, we do it again on Friday but this time with a cheer. “Hey there _________ the weekend is near. What’cha gonna do when it finally gets here?” They love to do this the last 15 minutes of school on Friday and quite frankly so do I. It gears us up for the weekend and ends the week on a great note!
The rest of the week I keep it pretty open. Some days I ask “Does anyone have news to share today?” Sometimes an exciting event may happen on a Tuesday after all!!! Other days we share an idea we learned from last night’s homework, study guides, vocabulary or reading for an academic touch.
To view more information about Morning Meetings and Sharing in particular visit: http://www.youtube.com/user/responsiveclassroom/featured
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