🟢 Revisiting our Morning Circles
This school year, our schedule includes a dedicated time every morning from 8:00 to 8:15 for something simple but powerful: a circle routine to talk, connect, and get to know each other.
As the year moves forward and students grow, routines evolve too. Recently, we reviewed and updated two of our morning circle activities to keep them fresh and meaningful for the class.
Here’s how our week looks now:
🟠 Mondays: Weekend stories
We share how our weekend went with fun and reflective prompts like:
• What was the best part of your weekend?
• If your weekend were a movie, what would the title be?
• Did you learn something new?
• Choose an emoji for your weekend and explain why.
A simple way to reconnect after the weekend and hear each other’s stories.
🟡 Tuesdays: Opinion Thermometer (new routine)
I read a statement and students react using agreed gestures:
🔥 Totally agree → Arms up
👍 Agree → Thumbs up
😐 Not sure → Hand moving horizontally
👎 Disagree → Arms crossed
❄️ Totally disagree → Squat or “fall asleep”
After a few statements, we invite students to explain their thinking:
• “Why did you choose that position?”
• “Only the students who disagree can speak.”
• “Convince me in 30 seconds.”
It’s a quick and fun way to introduce voice, perspective and respectful disagreement.
🟣 Wednesdays: Two truths and a lie (new routine)
One student comes to the board and shares three statements about themselves. Two are true and one is a lie.
The rest of the class has to guess which one is not real.
It’s simple, but students love it and it helps everyone learn a little more about each other.
🔵 Thursdays: Travel stories
We talk about past trips.
The original idea was for students to share… but somehow it turned into me telling wild stories about getting stuck with no fuel on my motorbike in the middle of Oaxaca, or freezing on a 16-hour night bus from Cairo to Aswan in Egypt.
🟢 Fridays: Looking ahead
We close the week by sharing our plans for the weekend.
These small circles help build trust, voice and relationships right from the start of the day. And just like our students, our routines sometimes need to grow and change too.
💬 Have you ever adjusted your morning routines during the school year? What worked best for your class?
