Kikori Offers Free Morning Meeting Planners and SEL Lessons for All Ages!

Disclosure: Kikori is currently an advertiser on FreeTech4Teachers.com.

Kikori is an app and website that I first reviewed back in March shortly after its initial public launch. Since then it has become a popular resource for teachers looking for social emotional learning (SEL) lessons and activities for students of all ages.The free monthly SEL activity calendars, like this one for August, is one of the things that has made Kikori popular.

Building on the popularity of their monthly SEL calendars, Kikori is offering free morning meeting and advisory meeting planners for the start of the new school year. The Morning Meeting planner is designed for use in elementary school classrooms. The Advisory Meeting planner was created for middle school and high school use. Both planners are aligned to CASEL Social Emotional Learning Standards, 21st Century Skills and Sustainable Development Skills. 

Sign-up for a free Kikori account and you’ll have access to both Kikori planners in the mobile and desktop versions of the Kikori app. The planners will appear in your account once you've created a free Kikori account. If you already have a Kikori account, you should be able to see the planners now. 

How to use Kikori’s Morning Meeting and Advisory planners.
The Morning Meeting and Advisory Meeting planners use the same format with slight differences in the recommended activities between the two. The format is to list a National “X” Day like National Relaxation Day and theme for the day like Mindful Monday or Wellness Wednesday. The planner then lists SEL activities that you can do with your students. The activities for this month are:

• Greeting activity
• Sharing or Acknowledging Activity
• Special Day Activity (i.e. National Never Give Up Day!)
• Morning Message or Announcement
• Themed Activity!

Finding the details for those activities is easy because they are all listed and linked under “August SEL Calendar” in the Kikori app. See the screenshot below for an overview of the Morning Meeting Planner for this week.

In the Kikori app you can find details for all of the activities listed in the Morning Meeting and Advisory Meeting planners. When you click on an activity’s title in the app you will find details about the purpose of the activity, how to prepare for the activity, a list of materials you might need (if applicable), and suggestions for variations on the activity. My screenshot below shows part of the details page for the Neighbors Greeting activity on today’s Morning Meeting planner.

Why I Like Kikori's Advisory Meeting Planner
There are some things that I feel like I’m good at in the classroom. However, running advisory meetings has always been a challenge for me unless I had a plan going into the meetings (I attribute that to my penchant for going off on tangents). Kikori’s new Advisory Meeting planner is perfect for people like me who need a plan and focus for meetings that aren’t a part of a traditional subject area curriculum. 

How to Access and Use Kikori
Kikori is available to use in your web browser, as a free iOS app, and as a free Android app. Watch my short video below for any overview of Kikori and the SEL calendar.

More Planners for September!
In September all teachers who download Kikori's August Planners will receive a unique September Morning Meeting or Advisory Planner for PK-K, grades 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, middle school and high school. So if school isn’t in session for you right now, download the August planner anyway so that you can get the September planners.

Discounts for Upgrades
Kikori operates on a freemium model. Everything that I’ve mentioned in this blog post is available to you for free. If you want to access everything that Kikori offers, you can upgrade to a premium account. Use the code BACK2SCHOOL10 for 10% off until Sept. 30th.

Digital Empowerment Journals for Students

A few weeks ago I shared a collection of resources for fun physical education activities. That collection featured free resources for National Field Day organized by OPEN PhysEd. OPEN is a public service funded by Varsity Brands who also offers some excellent free resources for teachers and students. One of those resources is a program called the  Believe In You Empowerment Program. 

The Believe In You Empowerment Program is available in versions for elementary school, middle school, and high school settings. Each version of the program includes journals for students to keep. Those journals are organized around themes of grit and enthusiasm. The full program has contains activities for forty weeks of short lessons. A grid of the SEL concepts covered in the forty works can be seen in this PDF. 

In addition to the journals and thought-based activities, the Believe In You Empowerment Program has some physical activities for students to do. These include fun group activities like a leadership dance party and charades. 

Applications for Education
While the Believe In You Empowerment Program comes from an organization that is focused on phys ed, the program could be used by just about any teacher who is interested in using it.