When I was in the classroom, I used to have a template that I used to write “morning messages” for my students so that I didn’t have to repeat things as each of them arrived in the morning.   It listed materials they needed to start the class with, and instructions on what to do if they had all their materials ready.  (Of course, when I first started that, it was on a transparency to display on the overhead!)  Good times! 🤣

Over the summer, I decided to come up with morning messages that I could use with my library classes so that I could have an agenda for them to see what was planned that day.  I’ll be honest, though…It was also to help me STAY ON TIME (as I often would get involved with what we were doing I would forget to watch the clock!)

As I was planning out what I wanted my template to look like, I knew I wanted:

1) A spot to put in general reminders for things we did all the time (the clipboard)

2) A spot to put the grade level and their library time (so I would know when to start having them clean up)

3) An agenda with a list of activities for the day (ombre paint palette)

4) A place to show the book we would be reading that day (the book)

5) A place to put special links to websites or videos or other activities I had planned for that group (the computer)

As I was creating it, I started thinking that this would also be GREAT to have for subs…all the links would be in one spot, as well as the agenda for what to do with each class.  So once I was done, I went ahead and uploaded it to Google Slides.  In an emergency, I could always send that link to my team member to put on the computer for the sub! Genius!

Once I created them, I decide to try it out on our first week back to school.  They worked so well! I loved hearing the kids say “Oh!  We get to go check out books now!”…which meant they were actually following the agenda! SCORE!  Here’s what my first week’s Morning Messages looked like!

Since it worked so well, I thought other people might want to try it out so I created 3 different versions:

1) Morning Message templates (13 different colored slides) with “Library Learning Targets” for use with librarians

2) Morning Message templates (13 different colored slides) with “Today’s Learning Targets” for use with other classrooms

3) Morning Message templates (13 different colored slides) with a blank box so you can write in your own heading (Activities, Common Core Standards, TEKS, etc.)

4) And finally, if you’d like to use Google slides for your Morning Messages, I included a download link for you to make a copy of the template into your own Google folder

You can find everything either here on my website or at my TpT store.

I’d love to know what you think or other ways you relay information to your students!