Since the entire point of morning meeting is to build your classroom community, this year presents its challenges. While most morning meetings thrive on circle time, student-to-student interaction, and team-building, a socially distanced classroom is not the most user-friendly for your typical morning meeting. There is a high need for social distancing morning greetings and activities.

Here’s the thing. I’ve loved and used these morning meeting slides for years but knew that if they were going to continue to help teachers this year, some changes had to happen. It forced me to reflect upon social distancing morning greetings and activities that could be done in a no-touch, 6-feet apart, safe way. The following activities can also work for remote learning as you connect via Zoom or Google.

1. Change Your Voice

Kids love a good silly voice. Or scary voice. Or any voice, for that matter. This is a great verbal alternative to no-contact greetings over a Zoom meeting or 6 feet apart in the classroom. And bonus: it will still be fun even after we return to normalcy.

2. Solve a Mystery

Sharpen your students’ problem-solving and deducing skills by creating a classroom mystery. Choose a student or an object and encourage students to ask questions to gain clues!

3. Act It Out

Kids’ imaginations are one of the most pure things in the world. Teach them the ways of royalty as they bow and curtsy from afar–or through a screen. This is a great addition to your social distancing morning greetings.

4. Spin a Tale

Oral storytelling is a core skills students learn in elementary school. Make it into a morning meeting activity by stringing together parts of the story as one person adds to it at a time. Bonus: write down the story and keep it in your classroom library!

5. Tell Your Story

Kids love to share–choose students to tell about what a typical day in their life looks like. This is a great way to get a glimpse of their home life and personal interests, but also encourages sequencing and transitional words! Win win!

6. Flip the Script

Don’t cringe: this one is actually a hoot. Allow students to ask YOU any questions. Of course, it helps to remind them to ask respectful, appropriate questions. Students will really get a kick out of getting to know you better.

7. Do the Same, But Spread Out

Thankfully, not everything has to be about social distancing morning greetings. There are still many other morning meeting activities and greetings that can be used as they normally would–with a bit of tweaking. As students remain in their 6-feet-apart bubbles OR on the other side of your screen, it’s possible to stick to your morning meeting routine as you used to know it but with some adjustments. Instead of taking turns in a circle, generate an order in which students share or greet from their respective spaces.

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