Morning Message

I just love three day weekends. I feel like I get SO much accomplished. For instance, I've been dragging my feet with our morning message routine this year. I wanted something new, I wanted something fresh, I wanted something the kids would enjoy- give me a three day weekend and it's done.

I spent some time reading about morning message. We do writing twice a day: in the morning for Daily 5 and later in the afternoon we do a writing workshop. During Daily 5 I really just want to teach a quick mini-lesson, most likely on mechanics, spacing, etc. I thought morning message would work perfectly.

My favorite site was Mrs. Nelson's Class. I got lots of great morning message ideas here, especially if you read all the way to the bottom where other teachers have submitted ideas. Now I have figured out where I want to start and more importantly, where we are headed.

I really wanted a catchy name for our "Daily News." That's when I ran across this site and discovered someone did the legwork for me. SWEET! Some of my favorites from the list were Humbug and Reflector. In the end I decided to go with 1B Chronicles.

Then, I typed up all the fun stuff I wanted to include: issue #, date, yesterday in review, what's happening today, reported by, nonsense word, and the code word. Cut it out, glued it, and this is the final product:

My plan right now is to laminate the chart and reuse it each day. I will have the technology guru take a picture of the newspage. I'm considering posting the pictures on our class blog at the end of the week. We'll see how that works out! (If all else fails, I'll make a class book with the pictures.)

For now, just my student teacher and I will be the reporting. I'm hoping in the next few weeks we can have the kids add bits and pieces. This whole idea may be genius or it may just bust! Time will tell!

Enjoy your day off teacher friends!

P.S. This probably won't be very helpful, but maybe a start. Click here for the google doc I used to make the news page labels.