I have been struggling with a morning routine that works well for our class. I started doing a morning mat time with our tamariki similar to what I was doing at kindergarten, my starting with a welcome karakia to start the day, then doing a chart on how we arrived at school to tie in with enviroschools and then a talk about the day ahead.

It felt really messy and disjointed, it felt like it didn't have much meaning to the tamariki and the chart just wasn't working so I decided to change things.

Through a bit of research on line I came across the idea of the 'daily news' which is a piece of paper on the teaching station with missing words about the day that tamariki help fill in, it goes over the day of the week, the weather and the days mystery which could be related to either maths or letter.
 This worked much better, we now start the day in a circle with candles lit in the middle and we sing our karakia, the best four singers are invited to blow out one of the candles, we then move on to the daily news and then discussions about our letter and number of the week and then move off to our zones.

Tamariki have really taken ownership of our morning routine, help get it ready and are often sitting on the mat waiting when the bell goes. I has also been heartening to see that on the odd occasion when we have had a computer malfunction this has not fazed tamariki and we just sing the karakia without the music. They have come such a long way and are now confident with all the words, so proud of them!