Build a Thriving Classroom Community Through Morning Meeting with Shelly Small

Listen to the full episode to hear about morning meeting:

Routines and structure are important parts to a smooth and effective classroom, but when a routine involves students, engagement, and relationships, that’s when it becomes an essential part of your day. This routine is known as morning meeting. While you may have heard of this before, my guest today, Shelly Small, shares how to build a classroom community through morning meeting. provides more insight. helps share her personal experience, benefits, and tips. 

Shelly Small is in her 15th year in Elementary Education and 13th year in the Dual Language setting in the Dallas area. Currently, she’s the 3rd-grade Dual Language teacher and Dual Language Lead at her campus. She loves being involved in her district’s Dual Language cohort. Señorita Small has taught 1st-6th grade with her favorite grade level being 3rd.

She had the honor of winning Teacher of the Year during the unprecedented pandemic school year of 2020-2021. These past two years have been years of professional firsts including recording her first podcast episode – this one!

As effective teachers, we know that relationships and student engagement are the foundation to a successful year, which is the whole basis of morning meeting. Not only is building classroom community a benefit, but there are so many more that Shelly highlights. She also shares the structure, examples of activities, and tips for an effective morning meeting, and why her kids love it so much.

Even though we’re in the second half of the school year, Shelly ensures it’s never too late to make morning meeting part of your day. By implementing her tips and structure, you’ll have a seamless transition and better classroom community and climate.

In this Episode on Morning Meeting, I Share:

• How to easily integrate morning meeting as part of your classroom, rather than thinking about it as something extra you have to fit in
• Ways to incorporate speaking into morning meeting that helps with ESL students
• A breakdown of her morning meeting schedule for each day
• Shelly highlights 3 picture books that are excellent for read alouds
• 6 tips to keep in mind for a smooth morning meeting

Resources Mentioned:

• Join the Writing Made Simple Membership

Connect with Shelly:

• Follow Shelly on Instagram: @srta_small35
• Engage with her on Twitter: @srta_small

Connect with Megan:

• Check out my TpT Store
• Subscribe to my E-mail list
• Instagram Posts
• Blog Posts
• Facebook Posts

About The Literacy Dive Podcast:

Do you find yourself seeking new ideas when it comes to literacy instruction in elementary classrooms? The Literacy Dive Podcast was created to offer actionable steps and to share information for teachers, like you, who are always looking to improve their craft! ELA is our jam and we are excited to dive into all things reading and writing with you!

Your host, Megan Polk, is the creator and owner behind The Literacy Dive and loves to support students and their teachers with curriculum, literacy instruction, best practices, and engaging literacy activities.

Dive in with us every Monday for a new episode from Megan! She, and her guests, will chat about various literacy topics and will bring you tips and tricks that can easily be implemented in your classrooms. You can tune in wherever you get your podcasts! Listen to The Literacy Dive Podcast on platforms like Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, and more!