Greetings In The Classroom - Autism Adventures

Do you teach greetings in the classroom? Starting your day off right is oh so important for kids to feel welcomed at school. Greetings can also welcome disaster. So let’s chat about how greetings can be a GOOD thing in the classroom!

First thing’s first, decide which greetings you want to permit in the classroom. Everyone has their own opinion and reasoning for allowing certain greetings in the classroom, and that is just fine. Allow students to offer peers greetings to one another. Provide students a choice or play a game to make a greeting choice fun!

I have a morning meeting visual pack that can help you set up a visual filled morning meeting routine. Put some posters on display so students can make a choice! I have to poster options:

1. Greeting Exchanges (posters showing an exchange between two people)

2. Open Greetings (posters showing a greeting open towards the viewer)

So, how do you teach students how to offer an appropriate greeting? It’s simple, break it down step by step and help kids master each little step until they are able to offer the whole greeting. Here are some step by steps below:

Hugs. I always allowed students to ask for a hug from me. I always wanted my students to feel loved and safe at school. With hugging comes STRICT guidelines. I always taught my students to count 1, 2 in their head before letting go. It’s never appropriate to sit and hug your teacher for 10 minutes, so let’s teach the students some guidelines.

High fives. High fives are a fun and playful greeting. Everyone loves a good high five. There is a perfect balance between a weak boring high five and a powerful scary high five. A high five is a super practical greeting kiddos should vernalize to the playground at recess and lunch. So, how do you teach kids how to do this?

Handshakes. A handshake is a very important skill as our kids get older and enter the work world. It’s also important for formal settings and anything business related. I don’t want to hear, “oh my kid will never have a job.” Every child can get a job that is designed at their ability. The first step to a successful interview is always a proper handshake. So, let’s start teaching kids at a young age how to offer a proper handshake.

Fist bumps. I mean, a fist bump is the definition of cool in elementary school, am I right? A proper fist bump is perfectly acceptable form of saying good morning to a peer. Now, a full blown punch of a fist bump…not so much. Let’s set students up for success by teaching them the appropriate steps of a fist bump.

Waving. A wave is the most casual form of a greeting, yet still perfectly acceptable. A wave also offers an option when greeting someone from a far. There are plenty of kids, who at this time, struggle with respecting personal space of peers. Offering a wave is a perfect option for kiddos still learning personal space! There are still some important steps to offering an appropriate wave.

Saying it. Offering a verbal greeting can sometimes become the most personal form of greeting if it follows up in the form of a conversation. But, it doesn’t have to! Teaching kids to say a greeting also offers variety as there are SO many different ways you can say hello.

Do you do morning meeting in the classroom? Morning meeting can be such a powerful tool in the classroom. I have said this before several times, and I’ll say it again, morning meeting sets the tone for the entire school day. When I was in the classroom, no matter what schedule I had set up for the year, morning meeting was ALWAYS first. I did things different than most teachers, I always did morning meeting and calendar separate. My morning meeting was always a simple and a fun way to start the day while my staff was able to check backpacks and communication books from parents.

Let me share how I did morning meeting when I was in the classroom:

First, attendance check in. I would call students up and students would find their name/picture and check in to school.

Secondly, students would work through the morning meeting binder with me. This gave me a quick way of checking in on my kids and seeing how they are feeling walking into the day. If someone was hungry, sad or scared I was able to adjust to make sure they could be successful for the day.

Here is a little video tour of my old classroom and how I ran morning meeting.

Looking for some visuals to spruce up your classroom and to facilitate communication? Check out my morning meeting visuals! Looking for visuals to teach each individual greeting? Check out my greetings bundle.