THIS IS NOT A MORNING MEETING WORKSHOP (replay)
99 daily check-ins that honor play and still meet early learning benchmarks and the method behind it!
Think about walking into work on a Monday.
You haven't put your bag down. You haven't had your coffee. And somebody stops you at the door and says everybody's in the conference room, we're starting the staff meeting now.
How did that feel?
That's morning meeting.
A kiddo walks in carrying whatever happened in the car, whatever happened at bedtime, whatever is going on at home this week. And we ask them to sit down in a circle and wait their turn.
There's another way to start the day, and I want to show you mine.
I'm Teaching MY DAILY CHECK-IN METHOD
I started this back when I was teaching at Butterfly Hill, and it came out of two things I wanted at the same time.
I wanted real one on one time with every single kiddo as they walked through my door. Not a wave across the room while I'm helping somebody find their cubby. Actual time, just the two of us.
And I wanted a way to finally see the skills that were so hard for me to catch during play.
You know the ones I mean. Whether a child can pick their own name out of a row, or has just memorized which hook is theirs. Whether they're really counting, or saying the numbers fast because they know that's what we want to hear. Whether they can hear that shark and dark end the same way. Whose scissors grip is still a whole fist come April.
I could watch a child play for six weeks and still not know. Some skills never came up on their own, and I was not about to pull a kiddo out of a block build they'd been thinking about since Tuesday just to go count dots on a die with me.
So I started doing this instead, and it turned into my favorite part of my whole day.
HERE'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
One little table by the door, right at kiddo height. One activity sitting on it, and only one.
The classroom is open. Play is happening. Children walk in, they see something interesting waiting, and they come over because they love the one-on-one time with you and it looks inviting!!
Morning check-in is optional every single time, for every child, all year long. A kiddo can walk right past it and head straight for the blocks. That's allowed, and a child who learns that no thank you gets honored around here is a child who says yes freely all year.
To them it feels like a game, and it is one! They roll a die, they crack open a plastic egg, they fish a rubber duck out of a bin of water, they tell me all about their grandma.
All the noticing is happening on my side of the table. They have no idea one of these even took place.
You get a real touch point with every child. You catch the skills play doesn't hand you. And nobody gets pulled away from anything.
WHAT WE'RE COVERING TOGETHER
25 daily check-in ideas you can start using Monday
5 math and counting
5 literacy and language
3 gross motor
3 fine motor
3 social and self
2 arts and expression
4 questions of the day
BUT - you also get 74 more check-ins with the 102 page morning check-in guide that is included!
PLUS THE ENTIRE METHOD BEHIND THEM
How to set up your check-in space and what actually goes on the table
Why this works better than a morning meeting, and what happens to a room when you stop starting the day with compliance
How to keep play open the whole time so nobody is sitting and waiting on you
How every check-in connects to your early learning benchmarks, and how to know exactly what you're looking for before a child ever sits down
What to do on the mornings when twenty two kiddos arrive in the same eleven minutes and three of them are crying
The afternoon version, for those of us whose mornings are never going to work for this
Everything we're teaching at circle time right now that really cannot be taught at circle time
How to jot down what a child showed you without it ever feeling like a test to them
What a doorway will never catch, and where to go looking instead
WHO THIS IS FOR
Preschool teachers, family child care providers, and anybody who has ever been asked to prove that play is working.
WHAT YOU GET
-1 hour training on the daily checkin method!
- 102 page guide with 99 checkin ideas
-A professional development certificate for 1 hour
