Mornings in the classroom can be full of chaos and excitement. You might find yourself being pulled in multiple directions. Add to that the morning administrative tasks, and it can be a not so calm start to your day. But . . . they don’t have to be that way. With some morning work ideas that get kids ready for their day, you will be able to find a little extra time to take care of all those morning tasks. Adding morning work to your student’s daily routine takes very little or no prep and helps students develop important independence skills! I am so excited to share how you can set the tone for the day with engaging morning work. With purposeful morning work and a routine you can commit to, you will be well on your way to a successful year with your students.

What is morning work?

Let’s start with what it isn’t. Morning work isn’t busywork or time to introduce new concepts. Morning work should include activities to help your students review information they have previously learned. This can be vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling, math problems, or any subject you want to ensure your students are regularly practicing. Journal writing and silent reading also make great morning work activities.

The goal of morning work is to create a morning routine that allows students to arrive, unpack, and focus on an activity that doesn’t need to be teacher-led. As a teacher, you need just a few minutes at the beginning of the day to take care of parent questions, attendance, lunch choice, and the other things that pop up first thing in the morning. Having a solid morning routine helps this to happen.

My best advice for a successful morning routine is to make it a part of your classroom procedures from the start. If not day 1, then definitely day 2. When your students know what to expect as they are starting the school day, they will be able to get to work independently.

Zero Prep Morning Work

Providing a quality skills-based spiral review with ZERO PREP is like winning the lottery! With this Paperless and Projectable Morning Work, you don’t even have to make copies! This is one of my favorite options for easy and sustainable morning work. Just project the slides onto the whiteboard in the mornings, and it’s ready to go when they arrive. Students will simply complete the morning work activities in a notebook. Easy Peasy!

Because the work is organized on digital slides, it’s easy to pull up the slide first thing in the morning. If your students have access to computers or tablets, you can also assign the morning work slides through Google Classroom or another online learning platform.

This Paperless & Projectable Morning Work includes a variety of ELA and Math skills on one slide. It makes for a great review and provides repeated practice of skills and concepts our students need to keep fresh in their minds.

Try it for FREE!

If you’ve never used morning work before, it can be hard thinking about adding one.more.thing. Instead of jumping in – why not just commit to giving it a try for one week. You can grab this FREE WEEK of no-prep morning work and try it out in your classroom. I think you will love how simple it will make your morning routine and frees you up to get those morning teacher tasks done more quickly.  

These morning work resources were collaborative projects. I worked closely with TpT Author, Shelly Rees, to bring you four different grade levels of spiral review. You can find each full set of Paperless & Projectable Morning Work in Shelly Rees’ store.

Keep it Digital and Make it Personal

I feel like we have all taken a deep dive into the technology ocean lately. Therefore, put some of your new digital skills to work with morning message slides featuring BITMOJI images of… YOU! Kids really love seeing their teacher in wacky festive outfits, silly poses, or maybe even riding a magical unicorn. It’s a great attention grabber and a fun way to start the school day.  

BITMOJI Morning Message slides include:

• Daily quote
• Question of the day
• Morning to do list
• Your BITMOJI avatar

With monthly themes and editable slides, it’s easy to customize your BITMOJI Morning Message to fit your classroom needs. Teachers love using these morning messages in their classrooms by projecting them on the board. If you are in a 1:1 classroom or have virtual learning days, you can easily use Google Classroom or another Online Learning Platform to assign the slides directly to your students. Morning message slides are meant to be a way to inspire your students every morning before they start their day.

Give Each Day a Focus

If you want to be sure you are giving your students opportunities to review specific subjects, consider giving each day of the week a theme. This method gives you more control over what your students are doing; however, more prep work is involved. With a little planning, you could have some amazing daily morning work themes designed to help students with the exact skills and concepts they need.

Ideas for daily themes include:

• Main Idea Monday (reading passages focusing on main idea)
• Math Facts Monday (math fact practice activity)
• Tell Me Tuesday (paragraph writing practice)
• Teach Me Tuesday (connecting writing to math – students teach, via writing, how to solve a problem)
• Word Work Wednesday (vocabulary, spelling or grammar)
• Wacky Writing Wednesday (wacky writing prompt)
• Teacher’s Choice Thursday (anything you want!)
• Fri-Yay (this can be any fun activity, for example, a vocabulary word search, holiday or seasonal activity, color by number page, or even free choice from a list of options)

By building in a “Teachers Choice” day into the week, you will have the flexibility to have your students review a specific skill or concept they may be struggling with. This is a great way to add some additional practice or review.

Making the Most out of Morning Work

No matter how you choose to set up morning work for your students, be sure to pick something that feels doable to you. Setting your routine early in the year will set you up for success for the next 9 months. It’s a great way for you to set the tone for the day and get your students focused and ready to learn.

Save These Morning Work Ideas

Don’t forget to pin this page to your favorite Pinterest board so you can come back any time for some helpful morning work ideas!