Morning Meeting SEL Activities for Educators

Inside: 11 Morning Meeting SEL Activities for Educators to use to start the day with more kindness and connect with students.

When I taught Kindergarten, I cherished my morning meeting time with my students.

It was a great way to start the day off, connect with students, get them excited about the day, and sneak in some learning at the same time.

But I was always looking for meaningful morning meeting sel activities to help my students understand that while they were there to learn their abcs and 123s, they were also there to learn how to be kind, how to be a good friend, and how to interact with peers in positive ways.

Social Emotional Learning is a crucial part of any curriculum and intentionally teaching it using SEL Curriclum like this is essential if we want to bully-proof our students, create a safe learning environment, and give students intentional opportunities to be kind, helpful and empathetic.

But we don’t always have time for dedicated SEL lessons and curriculum. So we have to be creative and “sneak in” SEL lessons and concepts whenever we can: lining up, walking through the hallways, and as bell ringers.

And our Morning Meeting time is the perfect time for social-emotional learning activities to create a positive foundation for the day ahead with these 11 Morning Meeting SEL Activity Ideas you and your students will love.

Why Morning Meeting Time is Perfect for Social Emotional Learning

Morning meeting time in any elementary school classroom is a great time to connect with students, build classroom community, and set the day up to be a good day in a consistent way.

Which is why your morning meeting is the perfect time to focus on social emotional learning.

There are tons of ways to incorporate SEL into your day, but your morning meeting time is an effective one.

Related: 10 Ways to Teach SEL

If you are a classroom teacher pressed for curriculum time and can’t figure out how to fit in one more topic, one more lesson, and one more subject, then “double dipping” or sneaking sel into the cracks of your already busy day will help you.

Your morning meeting time is a great way to create classroom community and connect with your students and set the expectations of your day; it’s also the perfect way to “sneak in” some social emotional learning with these 11 ideas.

Here are 11 Morning Meeting SEL Activities You’ll Love:

1. Kindness Word of the Day

Teachers are constantly searching for ways to increase students’ vocabularies in real-world ways so the words feel authentic and aren’t simply memorized and then quickly forgotten. An SEL or Kindness Word of the Day will help with that.

Quickly introduce the word during your Morning Meeting, and put it up on your board. Students can brainstorm what it means and ways to show the word. Sneak in gross motor skills and drama skills by acting out the word or ways to show the word.

And connect the word to your vocabulary list or vocabulary activities during ELA time.

2. Kindness Question of the Day

We could ask our students a million different questions to start our school day. But instead of a question about their favorite ice cream flavor or their favorite pet, ask them questions about kindness, friendship, being an includer and how to stand up to bullying behavior.

It can be hard to come up with a question every day, so we’ve done it for you with our 180 Kindness Questions of the Day to make your life easier.

3. Turn and Give a Compliment

Everyone loves to get a compliment, but most kids don’t know how to do it because they haven’t practiced. Yes, we can model how to give compliments, but a really easy way is to practice.

Give students a second to turn to a classmate during your morning meeting and give a compliment to them.

If kids need help learning how, you can teach Kids How to Give Compliments with these Compliment Cards

4. Morning Meeting SEL Activity: Kindness Affirmations

What we think in our head, becomes how we feel. How we feel often dictates how we speak and act. So if we want students to focus on kindness all day, we have to help them by intentionally creating those positive inner thoughts.

One simple way to do that is with Kindness Affirmations.

Affirmations like:

I am a kind kid.
I am a good friend.
I am friendly.
I include other kids.
I speak and act with kindness.

Get More Kindness Affirmations and why they work here.

5. Read an SEL Picture Book/Chapter Book

There are a million amazing picture books and chapter books in the world. So when you’re choosing books to read, pick one with a message that will help your students.

Books about Dinos who love tacos are hilarious and fun, but books with a kindness, friendship or anti-bullying message will help reinforce social emotional learning concepts you’re teaching your students.

SEL Book Lists:

6. Set Kids Up for a Kindness Challenge during your Morning Meeting

Kids love a good challenge, so encourage them to to a Kindness Challenge.

Give them one kind thing to do or say each day so kindness becomes a habit and feels “normal” to them.

You can use our Monthly Kindness Challenge to focus on a different kind of kindness each day of the week.

Or if you count down to the 100th day of school, you can use our 100 Days of Kindness Activities. When you get to the 100th day, they’ll be 100 days smarter and 100 days kinder.

7. Morning Meeting SEL Activity: Play a Quick Kindness Game

To make your morning meeting SEL activities more fun, teach your students a kindness game.

You can use one of these Kindness Games kids love or you can use a themed Kind or Sort Game. You can preview the game during your Morning Meeting and play a few cards before leaving it in a center for ELA time or for early finishers.

Kids will also love playing our Kind or Trash Game as they sort through the action cards.

8. Praise and Celebrate Kindness During your Morning Meeting

If we want any behavior to continue, we know positive reinforcement works. So when we see kindness in action, we need to pause and praise it.

We can praise the behavior, or praise the kid, or both!

An easy Morning Meeting SEL activity is to ask kids if they’ve seen any kindness at school or if any of their classmates have shown them kindness. It’s also a great time to report on any kindness you or any other staff have noticed.

To further praise kindness and keep that positive behavior going, during your morning meeting you can also hand out:

9. Create an Anchor Chart for Kindness

Create an anchor chart for sel and kindness by adding to it during your morning meeting. As a class, you can constantly be adding things to the chart showcasing ways to be kind, helpful, friendly, empathetic, compassionate, and a good friend.

10. Recite a Kindness Promise or Anti-Bullying Pledge

Each morning is a great time to remind students to intentionally, on purpose speak and act with kindness. You can do that by reciting our Kindness Promise as a class.

If you are also focusing on anti-bullying, standing up for others, and reducing bullying and mean behaviors, you can also help students repeat this Anti-Bullying Pledge each day.

11. Morning Meeting SEL Activity: Share Kindness Ideas and Writing

If you’ve done any kindness or social emotional learning writing throughout your day, your morning meeting time is perfect for students to share their writing with their classmates.

You can sneak in listening and speaking standards as students use the time as an informal writers workshop and share their published work.

Need SEL Writing activities? You’ll love our Kindness Craft and Writes themed for every month of the year.