Create a morning routine in the classroom that will set your students (and staff) up for a successful day!  If you’re a SPED teacher, you know repetition is so important, and what better way to catch your students’ attention than when they are fresh and ready to start the day? Here are some ideas to add to your schedule each morning.

Morning Routine Ideas

Music

To make the classroom feel welcoming each morning, I usually have some appropriate music playing lightly in the background while everyone starts & finishes their routines and gets settled.  I usually change up the playlists every day (and depending on what I’ve noticed students liking more), and I’ve played anything from classical to reggae, to indie rock.  Another one of my favorites is to find Lofi, stations on YouTube that have a pretty background you can display if you have a SmartBoard. It’s amazing how a little music during your morning routine can positively influence your day!

Task Analysis

If your school and students are like mine, all of my students do not come into the classroom off of buses or from being dropped off at the same time. On top of that, bathroom routines take everyone different amounts of time, so oftentimes, I have a few students who are sitting at their desks well ahead of other students. Because of this dilemma, I put up a task analysis slide such as: “Put backpack away, take out forms/permission slips, put away lunch or fill out lunch order, go to the restroom, start writing today’s agenda”.  By putting up this task analysis during the morning routine, students can work on their independence by completing tasks with little to no staff help – or at least that is the goal! 

Schedule & Today We Are…

You may or may not have all of your students ready to go yet, so during this time, I have students copy down their schedule during our morning routine, review their visual schedule with a staff member, or copy/type a short paragraph about what we are doing today.  This is a great way to get students to work on their writing each day!

The reason I do not review schedules as a group is that oftentimes, most of the students have different schedules when it comes to services and on or off-campus jobs.  For many students, writing down their schedule can help ease anxiety by front-loading them on what is to come for the day.  This is when you will want to highlight when preferred activities or breaks/lunch are to give your student motivation to participate in all activities to come.

For students who are writing down their schedules, this is a great opportunity to practice functional reading with an analog or digital clock.  Get these FREEBIE differentiated schedule activities here:

Independent Work

For students that I notice settle in quickly on a regular basis, I might add in a little easy independent work for them to do during our morning routine.  I might also give them a classroom job like placing stacked chairs at desks, collecting attendance, or delivering the lunch envelope.  It will differ from classroom to classroom on what will work for you and your students as far as timing goes!

For the independent work during a morning routine, I try to pick materials that are going to be related to the morning meeting, such as calendars, weather, or personal information.  The keyword here is “INDEPENDENT”.  Make sure you give them something they are able to complete independently or with very little help.  If you have individual tablets/iPads, digital activities are great, and if you don’t, file folders or task cards work great!  Here are some example activities:

Here’s a differentiated (3 levels) Life Skills Daily Warm-Up packet I have for each student.  Each day during independent work they can work on calendar skills (yesterday was, today is, tomorrow will be, month, day, weather), functional vocabulary, temperature, telling time, money/math, reading comprehension, and community signs!  It’s a nice little warm-up to hit each subject without overwhelming the student. Check it out here.

5 Minute Stretch

By now, you should have most, if not all of your students ready to start your morning meeting.  I like to start out with a quick 5 minutes at desk/stand in place stretch.  Stretching for just a few minutes in the morning can result in a boost of energy for the day, as well as a few other benefits.  There are TONS of simple 5 minute stretching videos on YouTube. You can find great videos by searching “Seated stretches”, “5 minute stretch” “Stretches to do at work”, “warm up stretch”… you get the point!  Here is one of my favorite videos we stretch to each morning by FitnessBlender.  The stretches are super simple, they narrate the positioning, and it has a visual timer for each stretch.  Morning Stretch by Fitness Blender

5 Minute Quiet Time/Meditation

On YouTube, you can find tons of countdown timers that are paired with relaxation music, or relaxation music with a calming screen to look at, or even five minute meditation videos that takes students through breathing exercises. Sometimes the mornings can be hectic and this is a great activity to do after you’ve done a little bit of morning work to help reset and give a little break before resuming more work.

Calendar

Ok, NOW it is time to officially start your “morning meeting”.  There are many different ways to review the date & calendar, depending on the materials you have access to!  I have a large pocket calendar posted on the wall that I like to use simultaneously with a powerpoint presentation (like pictured above).

Calendar set can be found in my TPT store – I’ve got several age respectful decor sets available HERE or on TPT.

You can review things like yesterday, today and tomorrow, today’s date, and important dates such as birthdays and field trips.  Depending on your students, it may suffice to just do a group power point presentation, while for others, it may be beneficial to include an adapted task or worksheet to go along with it!

Weather

This activity can be as simple as reviewing the season, if it is sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing…etc and stating if it is hold or cold temperature.  Take it up another level and use a website such as Weather.com to look at an actual weather forecast and review the high and low temp for the day, humidity, wind…etc.  This is a great opportunity to fill in a thermometer, discuss the type of clothing you would wear according to the weather, or the types of activities you can or can’t do according to the weather.

How I Feel

In my opinion, this is such an important activity for several reasons.  Students should learn to advocate for themselves by expressing how they feel, and it gives you & your staff a good gauge of how your students are feeling.  Whether they are tired, sick, hungry, frustrated…etc, it is times like these that your students will need your support!  When they express how they feel, it might also change how you structure their day.  This can be done as a group activity, but oftentimes can be done as a private response, because some students may not feel comfortable sharing how they feel in front of the whole class – which is totally fine! Check out these Morning Meeting Slides HERE or on TPT.

Class Discussion

Next, we spin the wheel (wheelofnames.com/) to decide what we will discuss each morning: What I Did Yesterday, What I Ate for Breakfast, or What I ate for dinner.

This activity is all about getting students to work on their social skills as well as recalling information.  I also like asking the students what they ate for breakfast so that I can gauge if they ate breakfast and if they are hungry.  It may be a hard task for students to recall information accurately, so to help with this situation, it is a great idea to send “homework” that parents can help fill out what a student did or ate the day before or over the weekend.  The same goes with this activity as with the “How I Feel” activity.  Be aware of if it may be sensitive for some students to discuss what they did over the weekend.  Instead you can do activities that prompt students to think of what they would like to do over the weekend.

Classroom Expectations/Rules

As I mentioned earlier, repetition is so important in a special education classroom.  I like to have my students review the rules/expectations we came up with together at the beginning of the year.  Whether it needs to be reviewed every day or once a week, it is a great reminder to read out loud.  

Pick Classroom Jobs

Have students pick their classroom job each day or at the beginning of the week in the morning. Whether you do it on the computer or you have a visual system set up on your wall, students will be front-loaded on what their duties are for the end of the day! Check out this blog with ideas for classroom jobs!

National Day/Quote of the Day

Here’s some fun activities that are also educational as well.  Pick an inspirational or historical quote to go over, or check what fun celebration there is each day.  You can find out what national day it is on Nationaldaycalendar.com, as well as some facts and history for this day. 

Expand on this activity by watching a short video on the celebration day (tons on YouTube), or look up on a map the location of the origin (if applicable).

Poll/Question of the Day

Here’s a simple and fun activity that usually everyone enjoys participating in.  In its simplest form, you can put two images up on the board and ask students to vote for which one they like better (eg. MnM’s or Skittles), and extend conversations about it.  If you put up a variety of images, you can ask students to pick their favorite option (eg. What do you want to cook for our cooking lesson this week).  Not only does this give you an opportunity to learn your student’s learning styles, but you also get the opportunity to know their interests and promote socialization.

Current Events

This is a great way to cover a bit of social studies, history, geography, science and more! Keep students informed on what is happening in the world (especially now more than ever).   Watch a short segment or read a news article together then fill out a current events comprehension worksheet.

Click on the post below to see a list of great websites to use:

Reminders

This is where you can remind students of important upcoming dates (such as a field trip or picture day), or maybe a checklist before heading to off campus work.  This is also a great opportunity to frontload students on any cancellations for the day that might throw their routine off.

Want to never have to plan another morning?

You don’t have to do ALL of these activities, there certainly might not be enough time for all of it depending on how deep you get into any particular area.  Another idea is to rotate a few of these throughout the week that way the same activities don’t become mundane.  

You can get the morning meeting powerpoint slides and coordinating worksheets that were pictured above. This resource also comes with an ASL version for your visual learners!

Thanks for reading!

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