Are you tired of the same old bell ringers? Maybe it is time to add to your 4th-grade morning work toolbox and include some more creative and hands-on ideas! In addition to traditional seatwork, you can also try some more interactive and creative ideas to get students involved and active in starting their day off in a positive learning environment.
1. Active Tic-Tac-Toe
Anything involving physical movement for students is a great benefit in your classroom, as long as it is well-managed. Active tic-tac-toe can serve as a fun morning work idea to rotate through your options from time to time. This morning work option will encourage students to think critically and move their bodies. You can encourage creativity by allowing them to design their own method for playing!
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2. Growth Mindset Activities
Growth mindset activities are always a great way to get the day going! Pair a character-building children’s book with a writing activity and you are all set! This could be part of a literacy center for morning work or could be a follow-up to a previously taught lesson. Promote classroom discussions and start your school day on a positive note!
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3. Math Morning Tubs
A variety of tubs for math review can be a great addition to your morning routine. These are easy to put together for the teacher and allow morning work options for the students. Choosing games that review math skills and concepts are great extra practice, as well as critical thinking games and those that encourage social skills or use motor skills.
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4. Synonym/Antonym Morning Work Puzzle
Vocabulary gets more difficult as students get older. Synonyms and antonyms are tough skills but with fun review material like these puzzles, they can become fun for students and encourage vocabulary building. Making vocabulary practice part of your daily routine will help improve the retention of new vocabulary! You could even take it a step further and have them use context clues in sentence writing! This is a great way to start your day, by having a vocabulary morning!
Learn More: My Kind of Teaching
5. Fraction Project
Fractions are a concept that needs review and frequent practice. You can turn these teaching printables into hands-on partner work activities. Using manipulatives for students to touch and manipulate can be very helpful in reinforcing basic fraction skills. An easy, no-prep math activity, this can also be a fast finisher activity.
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6. Friday Reflection
Every single week, on Fridays, you can have students sit down to truly reflect on their week. Hearing how your students feel about goals and what went well in their week may inspire some new teaching ideas within you! Some of these deeper-level questions on a more personal level may surprise you by the answers students give. This is a highly engaging activity because the students invest their thoughts and opinions into this morning’s work activity.
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7. Multiplication Made Fun
Anytime you can take a skill and make it fun for students is something worth exploring! Any fourth grade teacher knows you must have a solid grasp on multiplication in order to continue succeeding and seeing growth in this content area. Reinforcing multiplication facts is a prime example of the importance of this! This would be great as an engaging morning work activity, independent math center, or as a finisher task. These are also great warm-ups before math assessments or quizzes of math fluency skills.
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8. Morning Thoughts
Morning messages each day for students, especially through morning meetings, are a great way to start your day with your fourth graders! Asking a question or inspiring writing through an open-ended opinion prompt is great for oral answers or through a writing journal. Social skills and writing skills can be improved through this activity. Choose writing prompts your students can relate to and you’ll have a composition notebook full of writing before you know it!
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9. Question of the Day
Posing a question of the day is beneficial for getting your students to open up! Whether it be opinion questions, critical thinking, or reflective questions, you will see the potential for student growth in many ways. These writing prompts can be used in conjunction with speaking and listening standards or as a digital activity so that they can practice typing.
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10. Telling Time Games
Games and comprehension skills go beautifully together! Teaching time and elapsed time is difficult for students. Pairing this concept with a fun and interactive game that is easy to put together and use for a morning center is one of many great ideas for morning work options. This center activity would be great if you have limited time but will also provide a fun time as students complete the morning work activity while practicing fourth grade math standards.
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11. True/False Math Tubs
True/false tubs can be fun for students as well. You could review any content with this idea. Creating true false statements and having students sort them is a quick and easy way to have morning work ready and have morning work that works! This is a great rotation for daily math practice.
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12. Clip Cards
Clip cards are another good option for checking content knowledge and are easy suggestions for daily math morning work. Once you make these, you can use them for an immediate check of comprehension or as a 4th grade spiral math review later. These are easy to store and worthy of repeated use. Clip cards for different content are a great way to include extra practice into your daily math routine. These are also great for math test prep!
Learn More: Math Tech Connections
13. Morning Writing Prompts
Similar to a question of the day, you could ask questions or elicit responses from scenario-based circumstances that push students to think and write! These are great for the beginning of the school year and help build community among students and bridge the relationship between you and your students. You can use them throughout the year to gauge student progress in writing and with grammar skills and mechanics.
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14. Morning Work BINGO
Moring work BINGO is a fabulous way to give students choice! Upper elementary students really enjoy having options and choices in what they do. You could include independent reading or silent reading, reading centers, math centers, or other morning choices that can be done as seatwork. This can be a great accountability tool and is easy to glance over and check student progress for morning work.
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15. Weekly Word Problems
Weekly word problems can help you see how students are thinking through solving problems. You could even review methods for solving by asking students to do different things with the problem each day.
Learn More: 55 Challenging Word Problems for 4th Graders
16. Number of the Day
Number of the day is similar to question of the day or word of the day. Breaking down the number into the expanded form, word form, or showing different representations of the number is a great way to build number sense with larger numbers.
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17. Meditation and Mindfulness Activities
Meditation and Mindfulness exercises are great ways to get your kids primed for a delightful day of learning. You’ll treat them to relaxing activities such as mindful coloring and affirmation meditation to get their mornings going and ground them in calmness.
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18. Spiral Review
Spiral reviews are great ways to review skills over time and keep a close eye on student progress. These can be done with any content and skill. These are good for doing a quick check on recent content taught and older content over time. You can get math full year bundles and use them in conjunction with a math journal. They are a great quick math assessment to keep teachers informally or formally assessing the grasp of 4th grade math standards.
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19. Scrabble Word Work
Word work is good for all ages, but multisyllabic words and those with prefixes and suffixes are especially helpful for grade-level work in fourth grade. This morning work routine is easy to prep with only scrabble letters and a sheet of paper or morning work journal for writing. Even as students get older, it is important to have a block of time for students to practice word work skills. Having students work with syllables and sounds helps them with reading and with writing!
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20. Math Puzzles
Math puzzles are fun and creative in all elementary classroom settings! These encourage students to think outside the box and use strategies they know to solve critical thinking problems. They can show their thinking through writing or pictures, all while keeping math concepts fresh.
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