Word of the Week: Creating a routine and providing structure to mornings in Middles Quartz
For the first 30 minutes of the school day, students trickle in, put their things away, greet their friends, and get ready for the day. It’s a slow part of the day that can feel very chaotic if students don’t have a structured routine to help them transition into school. In three years of teaching, I had not found a routine for the morning that felt like it worked well. This year, I wanted to try something new for Morning Work time (this is what we call the time from 8-8:30).
A while ago, I purchased a book called The Little Book of Words That Matter by Joanne Ruelos Diaz for my son. While the book is for younger students, the words in it are ones that humans of any age could benefit from thinking about. I had been thinking about how to use the book with the Middles for a while when I began to reenvision what Morning Work could look like. And so the idea of having a Word of the Week was born!
Beginning in September, there is a “Word of the Week” that Middle Quartz focuses on for their morning work assignments. The first assignment of the week usually involves students reading about the word from the book and reflecting on what they already know about the word. Most weeks, there are two more assignments that involve reading, writing, drawing, or thinking deeply about the word. Some of the ways we’ve worked with these words include: writing stories, drawing comics, making poems, writing skits, and collaging. About once a month, we share something from our morning work book that we are proud of.
Our first word of the week was community. A fitting start to this routine, and a word most students are familiar with. Other words from early in the year include kindness, perseverance, choice, empower, and strength. In the second half of the year, we’ve gone deeper into words that might be less familiar, including self-aware, ally, culture, independent, and authentic. Our Word of the Week during Grandparents and Special Friends Day was tradition. Students were tasked with thinking about their own family’s traditions as well as interviewing our special guests about their traditions.
Implementing a Word of the Week this year has been a low-stakes way of exposing students to important concepts and providing them with a routine to settle into the day. Having this structure has allowed our mornings to feel calmer and quieter than in previous years. The open-ended nature of these morning work assignments allows students to dive deep if they want to or just skim the surface of a concept. If assignments are not completed during morning work, they become work to complete during quiet time. Implementing a Word of the Week has helped students grow their sense of responsibility for their work, increase their planning and time management skills, and expand their vocabularies. It has also shown me the importance of a structured start to the day, the benefit of a predictable routine, and helped me understand that giving students extra academic work can be successful, if the students feel it’s meaningful.
