Assign each student a spiral notebook and a location to keep the notebooks. During morning messages allow students to write in their journals. Provide a unit-based prompt on the overhead projector, chalkboard or dry erase board for students to base their entries upon. For example, the prompt "If I could choose any mammal as a pet, I would choose ..." can be tied in with a science lesson on mammals or domesticated animals.
Each student should have a spiral notebook or a designated section of his ring binder for vocabulary definitions. List one to five vocabulary terms from a current unit of any subject on the overhead projector, chalkboard or dry erase board. Students should use classroom, personal or computer dictionaries (depending on what your classroom uses) to look up each vocabulary word and write the definition into their notebooks on a dated page. This morning message activity also works well for defining newly introduced wall words.
Use vocabulary, spelling, math or science terms to create word searches or crossword puzzles. You can make your own word search or crossword puzzles or use programs online to help you. Math coloring pages are color-by-number, the number being the result of a math problem in each section of the coloring illustration. The student solves the math problem and then follows the color key to color that section the color indicated in the key. Most teachers' textbooks provide supplemental worksheets like these activities that can be printed and distributed to students, but some school districts do not purchase these additional teaching helpers. You can use a simple line illustration from an inexpensive coloring book and hand write math problems into the sections of the drawing. Add a color key to the worksheet with appropriate colors for each section of the illustration. Scan and then print the math worksheet, or copy the sheet on the school copier.
Write one to five vocabulary, spelling, math or science terms on the overhead projector, chalkboard or dry erase board each morning. During morning messages have each student write a sentence for each word using that word in the sentence. Encourage students to make the sentences into a mini-story, but this is optional. These daily word practice exercises can be written on paper and turned in at the end of the announcement time or written in a notebook for weekly or periodic grading.