Have you ever visited one of our classrooms and wondered to yourself what the meaning might be behind our colorful giant messages on large easel pad paper? Have you passed an interesting message hanging on the walls in the school and been provoked to think about how you would respond? Indeed, there are many amazing things that happen within WMS classrooms each day. There is the beautiful dance between a student and his or her "work," the sense of joy when a child discovers something new seemingly "by themselves," and a powerful love of learning that can't be taught in any book. The Morning Message ranks high among these incredible experiences in a WMS classroom, serving as a harmoniously concentric place to begin our day.
 

Many of our teachers have attended a Responsive Classroom training program, and all of our teachers practice these tools in our classrooms. Responsive Classroom, as described on their webpage, "is a research- and evidence-based approach to education that is associated with greater teacher effectiveness, higher student achievement, and improved school climate" and "one of the most well-designed, evidence-based social and emotional learning programs." The Morning Message is one of the many techniques a teacher uses to welcome the students into the classroom. The teacher can harness everyone's excitement and enthusiasm at the start of the day and transfer that energy into a purposeful response to the message. It is a common starting point that sets the tone. It provokes thought and there is a sense that there is no right answer, "just your thoughts."

The Morning Message increases in complexity as the year progresses. It is meant to be a functional note that engages the student to think in all curriculum areas of the classroom. It encourages the class to review information already presented, introduce a new concept for that day or make predictions for something that may happen that is pertinent to the classroom in the future. It can be answered as a group or individually. It is written in many different colors because we know that color is a powerful stimulus for the brain and for memory! Here are a few examples of how we touch on the curriculum areas in the classroom:
1. Language: "Can we stretch these words together?" (e.g., drawings of a pig, owl, fin, six and mug, for example).
2. Math: "Write the number that is 1 more." (e.g., 5, 10, 452, etc).
3. Science: "Draw an insect or animal you saw on our nature walk yesterday."
4. Social/Emotional: "Yesterday we read 'When Sophia Gets Angry.' What is one thing you do when you are really, really angry?"

The other important piece to the Morning Messages is that it is an introduction to the concept of shared writing. As children begin to write, it is important that they learn that writing is a process that we use to share ideas and communicate meaning on paper. We think, write, talk, read and listen to one another. The teacher also adds her response with the group and the students see the thought process occur as she writes. Ideas are born through this process! It opens the door to understand ourselves as individuals among our community through sharing, recollections, our experiences, diversity and community building. We learn grammatical concepts such as sentence structure, greetings, closings and expressive language. We practice mathematical concepts such as comparisons, predictions, observations and the number code for the date. We even celebrate our mistakes that we make as we write!

This is a wonderful tool to use as a conversation starter with your child, instead of the age-old, often dead-end question, "What did you do today?" Instead, ask about the Morning Message! It is bound to provoke an interesting discussion!