by Patricia Formicola

The best part of social distancing is every day at 9:30am I get to see my students and teaching assistant, Ms. Sonia for our Morning Meeting Circle Time! It brings an instant smile to my face as each child arrives to our Go-To-Meeting room. We count and take attendance each day and have up to 12 students at a time. We do our Good Morning song and our Positive Behavior Support song. This song is lead by my Teacher Assistant, Ms. Sonia. We then have a structured routine each day so the students know what to expect. It is the same schedule we used in our classroom at Easterseals  Friendship Academy in Levittown, PA.

We talk about the weather of the day. I call on a student who uses her talker (speaking device) to tell us if it is sunny, rainy, cloudy, or snowing. We move to our calendar, days of the week, special days of the month etc…Each student is called on to answer different questions like , what is the month, day, year and someone chooses the background for the calendar whether its a spring background, Earth day background, or rainy one for April showers. Then we watch a shapes and a number song video from YouTube using the split screen as a visual.

Afterwards we talk about the letter of the week, the sound it makes, and what words begin with this letter. Students then use items in their house to do a Show and Tell. This week was the letter “W” and students took turns showing me their water bottles, watches, Woody dolls, a whale stuffed toy and one student who is 3 years old even showed us a picture of Washington’s Crossing. W for Washington. His mom prompted him asking him what river and he knew it was the Delaware River that Washington crossed! He was excited to answer this question and we felt his excitement!

After the letter of the week, we do a read aloud book picking different authors. This week we are reading all Eric Carl books. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Lonely Firefly, Head to Toe, 10 Rubber Ducks, and The Mixed-up Chameleon. We make connections to each book as Eric Carl is the author and illustrator so you see similar pictures of the sun, moon, different animals etc.. His books also teach letters, numbers, shapes, days of the week, animals etc…

For the last part of our morning meeting we end with 100 exercises. I show a Jack Hartmann, Let’s Get Fit ….Count to 100 video. Every set of 10 we do different exercises including, arm circles, touch your toes, jogging, and clap your hands over your head.

Then we say our Good-byes to everyone! Students call out the names of their friends saying Good-bye to each person and see you tomorrow!