Each morning, Mrs. Niles writes our class a message. We know this as "morning message." In the morning message, there is information about some of the things we will be doing that day. The morning message helper (one of our weekly jobs) helps to point to each word as we read it together. Mrs. Niles always puts some of the same sentences in the message each day (the greeting, "Dear Boys and Girls, Good morning! Today is...", and the ending "Have a great day! Love, Your Teachers." She often leaves blank spaces in parts of the message where we need to fill in missing numbers or letters. During morning message, there are a lot of literacy skills that we get to practice. Sometimes we try to locate and circle specific letters, words, capital letters or ending punctuation. We also practice sounding out some words to read them or spell them. In the picture above you will see the word "got" is outlined in blue. When we see a word that is outlined, we know we have to work to sound it out. On the bottom of the message you will notice a picture. For the picture, we need to work together to stretch out the words and try to spell it. Sometimes she also writes additional words we need to try to sound out and read.
Mrs. Niles started sending home the morning message with a different child each day last week. This is something she says she will do for the rest of the year. Therefore, each child will get to take a message home several times this year. When your child takes the message home with them, they will also be bringing home a note about what they can do with it at home. Some of these suggestions are listed below...
- Read it to someone at home (using your reading finger)
- Circle letters throughout the message (perhaps the letter we are working on that week)
- Circle words throughout the message (our word wall words that we've been practicing)
- Count how many words are written in the message (look for the spaces to help you see where a word begins and ends)
- Count how many sentences were written (look for the periods, question marks or exclamation marks)
On the back of the morning message, your child can do a number of fun activities. Here are a few suggestions...
- Write your own message to the class.
- Practice writing your alphabet, numbers or words
- Practice writing sentences
- Draw pictures and label your pictures with words
- Draw pictures to make up a story
Mrs. Niles told us that each child gets to keep the message when they bring it home. She also said to feel free to send it back in to school to share if your child does anything special with the message or on the back of the paper.
