Imagination news: An alternative to morning news

In a typical junior primary classroom many mornings start off with morning news or sharing time which is a wonderful tradition that allows children to share their stories and helps to build their communication skills. Yet in some classes I have experienced that some children don't always have something to share and can be bored by this ritual. I want to share something small with you that I learnt from a lovely new entrants class I taught in that could help rejuvenate this morning routine. That something is imagination news.



Imagination news is giving the children a scenario and allowing them to use their imagination to share their news.

The scenario I gave this particular new entrant class was for them to imagine what they think they might find at the end of a rainbow. Here is a list of some of the things they suggested they might find there:

The children had some wonderful ideas and all students contributed to the sharing (even the shy ones) although some needed extra think time to do so. While I don't think it is something that I would do every day it is a great exercise to add some variety to the morning routine. Also it is easily adapted to any age group and can easily be extended. For example,  I could have asked children what they would do with what they found.  This could be integrated into other learning such as literacy (link it to a class book), Maths (a probability lesson) or inquiry (a class inquiry topic/question).