Digital Morning Work for the Reading and Writing Teacher: Get Your School Day Started Off Right With These 6 Featured Resources
Morning Work, Bell Ringers, Do-Nows - regardless of what you may call them, many teachers use them to get their school day started. It’s a great way to get your students active and involved in their learning from the very beginning of the school day, practicing skills that are oh-so-important to their growth as a student and as a person. As I’ve told my students, it gets your brain ready for the day! Below are 6 digital resources to use in your classroom to practice writing skills and get your students warmed up and ready for the school day. The great thing, however, is that these resources don’t have to be used JUST for morning work; they are a perfect addition to your writing lesson or independent writing!
Take the guesswork out of your daily routine with these daily SCR prompts. Prepare your students how to write a short constructed response from the very beginning of the school year and have them practice every day. Whether you call them bell ringers, morning work, or soft starts, your students will benefit from this great resource. This is especially helpful if you are in a state that puts an SCR into your state test, such as with the STAAR!
Simply copy and paste the desired slides into a Google Classroom assignment for your students to work on each day.
Get your students writing creatively with these picture prompts. Each slide has an open-ended picture as well as questions to spark the imagination. Use this resource during your morning work, in writing centers, or during writing assignments when you just want students to simply write! It is well known that a picture is worth 1000 words, and that one image can spark a world of imagination. That's what this resource aims to do!
Use this Would You Rather Resource to display to your class and start your morning, whether you call it a Bell Ringer, Soft Start, Morning Work, Warm-up, or Do-Now... Not only will it get your students building writing stamina, it can build community as well, as it asks your students to turn and talk to their neighbor about what they chose. You'll have lots of fun conversations!
Use this resource to help your students practice revising and adding details to their sentences. 50 slides contain sentences that students must revise on their own. They must add detail to the sentence listed using one of the 5 senses, and then add a new sentence using the same sense. After each sentence that lacks detail is a separate slide that gives an example of what adding detail using one of the senses looks like. The teacher can choose to show this slide or not - it's all up to you!
This resource is versatile, as it can be used for your morning meetings, for morning work, or as a source for writing prompts. Each slide contains a unique Question of the Day, where it asks students to write at least 3-5 sentences about that question. The best part? There are 181 unique questions, meaning you can use this resource all year around!
The questions themselves vary from funny to thought provoking, but, either way, the students are sure to be engaged, and great discussions will certainly ensue!
These 50 winter writing journal prompts are sure to get your students in the winter spirit. Humor, creative thinking, problem solving, poetry writing - this resource has it all! Use it as a morning work (or bell-ringer, soft start; whatever you call it), during writing time, or just for fun! It doesn't just focus on Christmas, so it's inclusive to all beliefs. Included is a PDF version, a Google Slides, AND a Google Form for your students to do it online if you want.
