Morning Meetings

What Is Morning Meeting?

Every morning at Liberty (excluding Wednesdays) starts with Morning Meeting and Independent Reading.

Morning Meeting is an engaging way to start each day, build a strong sense of community, and set children up for success socially and academically. The main goals of Morning Meeting include:

  • Each students starts the school day with a positive mindset and is greeted by name
  • Students build a relationship with at least one adult in the building that they can turn to
  • Students learn and practice soft skills that will set them up for success beyond school (such as effective communication skills, leadership skills, empathy, teamwork), along with activities to facilitate a growth mindset

Morning Meeting Component: Sharing

What is it?

  • Helps students to get to know each other
  • Develops important social and emotional competencies
  • Teaches thinking, listening and speaking skills
  • Strengthens language development and reading success (build vocabulary, learn pronunciation, learn to speak with grammatical accuracy)
  • Offers students an engaging way to develop empathy, consideration of others’ perspectives and social awareness
  • Helps students develop a repertoire of responses to different kinds of news, including asking constructive, purposeful questions and offering emphatic, insightful comments

Our Teams

  • Kids using string for project
  • Kids collaborating on project
  • Students gathered around table

Morning Meeting component: ​Teambuilding Activity

​What is it?

  • Allows the group to experience working together to produce an outcome impossible as individuals or a small group (build sense of community and group identity)
  • Short and fast-paced and involve everyone in the class
  • Encourages cooperation and inclusion
  • Reinforces and extends academic and social emotional skills
  • Fosters active and engaged participation
  • Allows students to see one another’s unique strengths
  • Provides the experience of having fun as a group

Reading

  • students reading together
  • Student picking up book
  • Student reading a novel

Independent Reading

Studies have shown that in order for struggling readers to make progress in reading, they must spend at about 3-4 hours a day reading. One of the biggest reading initiatives at Liberty is Independent Reading – a structured time provided to students to read and conference.

The Culture of Reading at Liberty will be prominent and communicated explicitly by staff to students. Book recommendations from staff, students, and parents will be highlighted on bulletin boards. Reading levels will be tracked and jumps in levels will be celebrated to encourage continuous progress among students.