Sylvia Long

Last week during Differentiation, my class got the opportunity to listen to Sylvia Allan, the principal of Vineyard Elementary school. It was such a fascinating class discussing the importance of morning meetings. I had never really thought of morning meetings being some amazing thing in the classroom. To me it mostly looked like it was fluff. I never really understood the benefits until Sylvia Allan came and told us what amazing things morning meetings can do.

Sylvia uses morning meetings in her elementary school. The entire school gathers together Monday mornings. She said that it is the only time that 100% of the students are successful. I loved the way she said that.

Going back to when I said that I thought that morning meetings were 'fluff,' well they definitely are not. They can be a great educational tool.

The model we are using in class is called the creed model. The following format is

• Greeting
• Sharing
• Group Activity
• News/Announcements

Sylvia Allan follows a different format. 

• Class Creed
• Greeting (Mornings only)
• Pledge
• Memorization
• Class Business
• Vegetables
• Dessert
• Medicine
• News
• Share
• Class Cheer

Her format gets the kids thinking and they learn a great deal in the process. I love that she has the students memorizing by simply just reading the poem over each morning. She doesn't want them taking it home and practicing. She makes it all so doable in her class. 

Sylvia talked about how her morning meetings got the students to trust her. They knew they could talk to her about anything and she would help them. She made a point to not embarrass anyone in her class. 

In the end, Sylvia had me thoroughly convinced that I would implement morning meetings in my future classroom.