Teachers Resource Force Blog

Character Education during Morning Meetings - ideas for 2021

19/4/2021

Teaching our young people character is more important than ever in these challenging times when everyone is being stretched to their limits. It is tough to find time to teach those social and emotional learning (SEL) skills and character building, but there is an ideal time I have found to incorporate this, and that is in the mornings before lessons take place. All it takes is 5 minutes of guided prompts to get students reflecting on developing their character. You can focus on a different character trait each month to get through 10 different character traits each year! Keep reading to learn how you can incorporate building character into your students during distance, hybrid or face to face learning, in just 5 minutes every day!

How to incorporate character education during morning meetings | Teachers Resource Force

How to teach 10 different character traits to your students in one school year:

I’m so glad you are looking to teach Character Education! Character development and socio-emotional skills are the critical foundation needed for our students to succeed in school and in life. If you are looking for an easy “plug and play” way to teach character in just 5 minutes each day, then this idea is all you need.

Using a resource such as this complete Morning Meeting Character Education bundle is a powerful and easy way to help strengthen your core curriculum for a responsive classroom. It ensures your students get the opportunity to learn how to develop their character by repetition and deep discussion. They are ideal to use for homeroom, advisory periods or as bell ringers for the start of your lesson!

In order to ensure Character Education can be integrated into your busy timetable, this resource has been designed to make it as easy to deliver as possible. You will receive both a structured printable journal and PowerPoint with 200 powerful quotes and 600 thought-provoking writing/discussion prompts, enough for an entire year. What’s more, is that there is no prior knowledge or experience from you required to teach it.

character education morning meetings | Teachers Resource Force

This bundle includes both the PowerPoint and the Journal of the same 200 quotes so you can display the quote on the board while students record their reflections in their journals. This allows for maximum impact and flexibility for you and your needs.

With this bundle, you get daily prompts that encourage students to reflect on particular character traits you would like them to focus on, and how they can develop this trait in their own lives. There are 10 different character traits, one for each month of the school year, so you get an opportunity to really focus on one trait in detail for an entire month. This bundle includes resilience, courage, self-confidence, self-respect, tolerance, leadership, respect, empathy, honesty and compassion.

When you teach character in this way, it also provides a positive start the day! It only takes you 5 minutes and you are safe in the knowledge that you are helping your students develop their character, which I’m sure you will agree, is more crucial than ever during these challenging times.

DOWNLOAD BUNDLE FROM TPT

DOWNLOAD BUNDLE FROM TRF

To conclude:

These are exceptionally challenging times; SEL and Character Education is more crucial than ever to help equip students with the skills they require to handle these challenges. Help build your students' character in 5 minutes every day, and encourage them to be all that you know they can be.

A freebie for you:

free resilience character education morning meeting | Teachers Resource Force

If you would like to try a sample of the resilience PowerPoint and journal you can download one for free.

You will get 4 pages of the Resilience Morning Meeting Journal, 3 slides of the Resilience Morning Meeting PowerPoint, a mindful colouring page front cover for the journal, 9 thought provoking writing / discussion prompts and 3 powerfully themed quotes based solely on Resilience. Click to download them now:

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Helping students deal with cyberbullying during distance or hybrid learning

22/3/2021

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As students spend more time online and communicating with their peers using technology during this pandemic, the risks of cyberbullying are inevitably increasing. Learning how to manage cyberbullying is going to be an increasingly more important life skill for our young people, as is the need to also learn about empathy in order to have compassion for others and treat their fellow peers with kindness. If you are noticing, or are concerned about an increase in cyberbullying as we spend more of our lives online, keep reading.

Dealing with cyberbullying during distance or hybrid learning | Teachers Resource Force

How to teach about cyber bullying during distance learning:

Sadly it is challenging to teach even regular curriculum content right now, let alone crucial life skills such as cyberbullying; the pandemic has turned education upside down. So an effective way of teaching topics such as this, is through self-directed self-assessing online lessons. With this cyberbullying online lesson, it makes teaching this topic much more manageable, particularly if you are distance learning or hybrid learning. Students will be able to work independently online to learn all about cyberbullying and strategies for how to manage various realistic scenarios in an effective way.

How does this cyberbullying lesson work?

This cyberbullying resource is completely remote and hosted online, making it ideal for distance or hybrid learning. Students can work through each slide at their own pace reading the content and learning new information; then they get an opportunity to answer questions on the topic to check their understanding. They cover different scenarios where cyberbullying can ensue, including: Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Snapchat, Texting, Emailing, YouTube and online forums.

There is a range of different question styles to keep the lesson interesting, and it also provides immediate feedback to students. If they have the correct answer, is confirmed automatically - no more grading for you.

This activity can be issued as classwork, homework or set remotely. It’s fully interactive, so easy to use and there are absolutely no resources required – you don’t even need to grade it as it is self-assessing. Students learn by repetition as they can review the content and redo the activities as many times as they need to improve their score.

DOWNLOAD CYBERBULLYING FROM TPT

DOWNLOAD CYBERBULLYING FROM TRF

To conclude:

Cyberbullying has always been an important skill to teach students, and in this current climate, it is more important than ever as students are spending more time socialising online. Teaching about cyberbullying in this way provides students with an opportunity to work at their own pace, learn the content in an interactive way and test their responses over and over again. This will give students the opportunity to embrace different strategies for dealing with the complex concerns surrounding cyerbullying.

A freebie for you:

Another effective skill to help students deal with cyberbullying, is to build one’s self-esteem. If you are interested in downloading this self-esteem colouring pennant freebie, you can access it below.

self esteem quote coloring pennant | Teachers Resource Force

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Use afternoon meetings to build classroom community

15/2/2021

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What’s the end of the school day like for you? For many teachers, it can be often frustrating and chaotic as everyone waits in anticipation for home time. Students are growing up to be constantly rushed from one activity to the next. They are in motion from the time they climb out of bed in the morning until the time they climb back into bed at night. They have no time to sit back, take a deep breath, and reflect. Wouldn’t you prefer to offer your students a time for peace, reflection, dialogue, and fun at the end of each day? If so, the answer can be found in your afternoon meeting. What’s an afternoon meeting, you ask? Keep reading to find out!

Afternoon meetings to build classroom community | Teachers Resource Force

What is an afternoon meeting and why do you need one?

We know the importance of classroom gathering for developing community. Many people have adopted morning meetings into their routine and school day, and those are powerful ways to start the day, but what about afternoon meetings? It’s so important to reflect and review on the day after it has passed; how did they do and what would they like to do better next time? It also makes for a much calmer end to the day, and is much better than just waiting for home time and running out of the building or shutting down the laptop! You can use afternoon morning meetings in a PowerPoint format or digital journal, and they work extremely well during face to face or online lessons to bring your class together one last time before they retire for the day. It effectively ends your school day in a nice little bow!

So what kind of activities can you do for an afternoon meeting? Here are 5 different ideas for your to end your day in a consistently positive and engaging way. These are easy to implement 5 minute prompts, ideal for distance learning and independent quiet time.

Monday afternoon meetings:

"Motivational Mondays" are great to end the day and week with a positive quote/thought/discussion. This quote is the same as the ones in the Morning Meeting set for continuity and deeper impact, but the prompts are different to allow for reflection on their day.

monday afternoon meeting | Teachers Resource Force

Tuesday afternoon meetings:

"True or False Tuesdays" are a fun way to end the day with a bit of joy and engaging trivia! You can have students put their hands up for true or false and then have a short discussion (or giggle) about some of the random facts they'll learn throughout the year. Alternatively, if you are teaching remotely you can use the afternoon meeting digital journal and ask students to type in their responses. These facts are different from the Morning Meeting set, but run along the same theme for continuity.

tuesday afternoon meeting | Teachers Resource Force

Wednesday afternoon meetings:

"Wellness Wednesdays" are for focusing on wellbeing, both mental and physical, that will help both themselves and demonstrate acts of kindness to others. These are either different or similar to the Morning Meeting set, but the prompts are different in order to encourage reflection on their day.

wednesday afternoon meeting | Teachers Resource ForcePicture

Thursday afternoon meetings:

"Thoughtful Thursdays" are to develop their thinking skills with some deep, philosophical thoughts and discussions. This can be done as a whole class or discussed in pairs or groups if preferred. These are completely different from the Morning Meeting set, but run along the same theme for continuity.

thursday afternoon meeting | Teachers Resource Force

Friday afternoon meetings:

"Funny Fridays" are great for ending the week on a high with a funny joke! These jokes are different from the Morning Meeting set, but run along the same theme for continuity.

friday afternoon meeting | Teachers Resource Force

These themed daily afternoon meetings are a powerful to end the day, or even your lesson, and there are enough messages for each day of the school year. This time for reflection helps with personal development and improving oneself, especially if it ties into to the morning meeting and it's a calming ending to the school day or lesson.

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DOWNLOAD FROM TRF

To conclude:

It is just as important to end the day in a positive way as it is to start it in one, especially if you are reflecting on the same things you did in the morning meeting which helps conclude the day. An afternoon meeting also means that both you and your students and no longer rushing or stressing or desperate for the day to finish as you have an afternoon routine that is effective and you can look forward to. If you are still remote learning or in a hybrid model, you might prefer to use the afternoon meeting digital journal, whereby students can type their responses into to the journal so that you can review your students’ responses, and maybe even identify areas that you feel your students would benefit from further attention in the future.

A freebie for you:

free afternoon meetings journal | Teachers Resource Force

End your day in a consistently positive and engaging way with these daily themed morning meeting whiteboard 5 minute prompts!

If you're interested in trying 1-week sample of the afternoon meeting, you can download it for free now.

DOWNLOAD FOR FREE NOW

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