[00:00:00] Welcome back to the TTT podcast. I'm so excited to have you today. As we chat with someone who has just a wealth of knowledge and passion for education. And that is Dr. Alissa Levy. Dr. Levy is a veteran educator with over 20 years of experience and she has done it all from substitute teaching to founding a public charter Montessori school. She is originally from Los Angeles, but is now living in new Haven, Connecticut.

And she is the author of morning routines for productive teens. In today's episode, we're going to talk about the impact that morning routines can have on students, both at home and in the classroom. And we'll hear about her Montessori background and how it's shaped her views on routine and structure.

And she's going to share some practical tips for teachers and parents looking to set their kids up for success with some [00:01:00] effective and easy to implement morning routines. So let's get started.

Welcome Dr. Levy. Do you mind if I call you Alissa? Absolutely, you can call me Alissa. Okay let's start with you just telling the listeners a little bit about yourself. All right, thank you. First, thank you for having me.

I'm excited about this opportunity. My name is Dr. Alissa Levy. I am a veteran educator originally from Los Angeles, California. From a family of teachers. My mom was a elementary school teacher, bilingual, and my grandmother taught special education. I have had every conceivable title in the realm of public education from substitute teacher to math coach, all the way through, I founded a public charter Montessori school in 2014 in New Haven, Connecticut.

I live at home with my wife. I have two dogs and currently seven cats because my cat had kids. Oh, seven cats. The two dogs I get. I also have two [00:02:00] dogs. I have a Boston Terrier and a Yorkie Poo. And yeah, they're my babies. We're so glad to have you and for you to share all of this amazing insight you have from having all these roles and all of the experiences that you've had in education.

So you are pretty much an expert at. Getting kids to start off their day in the right way through having a morning routine. So how did you stumble upon that as something that interests you and something that you would like to teach other people? Yeah it came to me through a variety of pathways. Having a Montessori background, I think routine and structure has always just been something I've gravitated toward.

But as you probably know, being in the classroom for, any number of years, you start to see that kids struggle with different things that can fall into different buckets. And you've got your kids who are. Gifted, but not motivated. You've got your kids who struggle with anxiety.

They don't want to ask questions. So they're, [00:03:00] that leads to some difficulties. And then you have a whole group of kids, a whole subset that struggle because. They have the knowledge, but they're disorganized. So they struggle with time management prioritization, just personal responsibility and independence.

I, so I thought to myself there's so much that I want to teach these kids, but just not enough hours in the day. So if I could put it all into a book that they could read, then maybe they can take some of that knowledge and gain some of these organizational skills, executive function skills.

With support. I hope I love that. So you have written a book that you just mentioned and it's called morning routines for productive teens. And I love that there is a resource that kids and teens can go to. In order to get better. I know I've read in the past couple of years, atomic habits and other books because I've also been interested in developing a morning routine.

That's going to make me [00:04:00] better at life and more effective and efficient at getting things done. So I love that you have that for them. And then also it's very interesting that you mentioned how your Montessori background led you to this. So tell us a little bit about that because I have studied it.

Montessori a little bit, not a lot, but just through my study abroad experience and I guess I wouldn't have, I guess I didn't realize that Montessori included so much emphasis on structure. So tell us a little bit about that, just because I'm interested. Yeah, I would love to so as you may know, Dr.

Maria Montessori was one of the first physicians in all of Italy. She was the first female physician in Italy and she was licensed, but because of being a woman she found it difficult to find a job as a physician, and she ended up working at a state hospital for students with developmental disabilities.

And so although she was the physician there she noticed that the students were not being educated they were not [00:05:00] expected to do very much throughout their day. And she wanted to help them because she saw that they had potential to develop some skills for independence and for self care and things like that.

So she started by developing tools for that subset of children and eventually her curriculum was so successful that it, became the national kindergarten curriculum in Italy. And if you want to think about Montessori in a way that's relatable, I feel to elementary teachers, it's like having stations every single day.

So the kids are at different stations, and the teacher is guiding a small group. And because of that, and as you, as anyone who's tried this knows, that takes a lot of energy. Structure. You've got the timers going. You've got the kids, assigned to their different groups, but it's all color coded.

So you know that everything has to be extremely well organized so that it can be successful so that you can have, six things going on at the same time. The kids have to be able to check their own work. The kids have to know where the materials are. And that's basically what Montessori is, in a nutshell.

And [00:06:00] it does work, but it requires a lot of front loading and a lot of pre thinking on the part of the teacher to just structure it in that way that kids can be successful. It's so interesting hearing you talk about it that way because I just haven't thought about it that way. But when I Reflect on my own classroom in the last few years that I was a classroom teacher, that's exactly what I was doing.

I just was calling it centers and student owned learning. But I too had to develop very strong routines and procedures. In the first few years when I was trying to teach this way and I didn't have routines and procedures like I did later, it just was a flop. Yes. One of the things I remember about Montessori, I don't know why this is, I don't know why this is like such a strong tie to Montessori, but I remember the emphasis put on real materials, organic materials and nature and things like that.

And my husband is a cabinet builder, so [00:07:00] sometimes I'll go to his shop and I see like this scrap pile where he's cut off a piece and now it's a block that's just in the trash. Every time I see that, I'm like, Hey, I could take this to school. This would be a good, this would be a good station. Yeah.

Good learning material. I need to do a little bit more studying on Montessori. But I love that. So what are some of the. the topics that you talk about in your book. Okay. Yeah. When I went to go write the book, because like I said, I wanted to make this guide for kids that struggle with organization, but I felt like that's a big topic and I could probably write several books on it.

So let's just start with the first thing, which I felt was the morning. I feel like they're leaving things at home and they don't know that they've got to test that day and things like that. So I felt okay, the morning's a good place to start. And it's also manageable. And most kids.

Have some type of morning routine, whether or not it's, effective. So I felt like some tweaks would be easy to do there. So some things in my book are things like how to calculate your ideal bedtime, how to know when to go to sleep [00:08:00] and when to wake up so that you're getting enough sleep, how to even clean and organize your learning space, like your desk, your bed how to write a manifesto.

I call it a manifesto, but it's like basically a personal mission statement so that you're goal focused and How to enlist your family's support in your morning routine so that it is successful and that you're all working together and not, running into each other. So some things like that are in the book.

So let's talk about it from a parent's perspective. So what are some morning habits, micro habits, things like that, that maybe a mom can help her children with in the mornings? Yeah, a super easy one is making the kids bed. So having them make their bed when they get up, it sets the tone for we expect to keep our space organized.

We expect to be productive from like the minute we get out of bed. We're going to make our bed as well so that when we come back in the afternoon, it's an inviting place for us to go and hang out. Drinking [00:09:00] a glass of water is a super easy one as well that I have tried to incorporate in my own life.

as a micro habit. I try to wake up and immediately drink eight ounces of water so that I'm getting toward that target, by the end of the day. Other things that you can have the kids do is a quick stretching routine. You can have them help prep their breakfast. Like my nephew, he likes to cook, but he particularly, he wants to do everything himself and he's about nine years old.

He got a book and it's Kebabs for Kids. That's actually the name of it, but it's every type of kebab. So my mom will prepare him little tubs of strawberries and mini pancakes, things like that, and he makes it into a kebab and he loves that. So he'll eat that for breakfast and he feels that accomplishment that he did it himself, oh, I love that. Oh my gosh. Like I've seen TikToks where an adult is more likely to make a salad because there is a little bowl of carrots that are washed and this and that and you just put it together. And I always see those and I'm like, yeah, if I had that, I would be eating salad every day.[00:10:00]

There's a section about meal prep in the book too, like teaching kids how to meal prep. So I think it's important. Oh, it is so important. So as a parent, I think it's more important to us as we get started on this for the child to do it than necessarily the child thinks that it's important. So how can you help your child to take ownership of their morning routine so they want to do it?

I think that kebab was a really good example of that. Yeah. As we learn in the classroom, if you have the kids co create with you and bring their inspiration into it, they're going to be, more willing and able to do it themselves. I think one thing you could do is work with your kid.

You don't want their morning routine to be overwhelming. So you want to start honestly with maybe three to five things depending on how old they are. So you can have the kid help you make a visual schedule, you can have the kid help you make a playlist. That lets them know by the end of this playlist, we should, have taken our shower and be dressed in the morning, or what have you, or this is a song that we make our lunch [00:11:00] to, or whatever it is, so those are just a couple of ideas. That playlist idea is so good, and I'm sorry to interrupt you. I, it was almost like, oh yeah, a playlist. So one thing that I've noticed about my own morning routines is That I don't always stick to them longterm. I get really excited in the beginning and I do all the things.

And then next week, maybe one thing gets off and then pretty soon I'm back to square one. So tips to help your child. And you, because it, as a parent, it also takes you to stick to a morning routine for the long run. Yeah I think, obviously, making it manageable, making it doable for your kid is the first thing.

But I think you can make it fun and challenging in a way. You can have a little competition. I have five things on my list, and you have five things on your list. Let's see who can get it done the quickest, that type of thing. Or, if you're into incentives, I think you can [00:12:00] incentivize it, but it doesn't have to be like a tangible reward or like a monetary reward.

You could say, if you're able to do this, then we're going to go to the park after school today, or if you do it for four days in a row, we'll do this. But I think, people who write books about habits, like Seven Habits and stuff like that, they'll tell you that I think it's 21 days or something makes a habit.

So I think that's the thing, is like getting over that hump. And it's not maybe going to be the whole, Morning routine that gets over that hump. So then, but at least you have something to build on, and I've noticed with myself, even though I have had certain habits fault, certain routine parts fall by the wayside.

Other ones have stayed. Yeah. And so I think if you're constantly assessing where you are in your life and your needs for the day or during that era. You can just continue to be. cognizant of making it a priority. Yeah. And it does, set the tone for your whole day. So it is, it is important.

It starts you with that sense of accomplishment. So I think if you can see the [00:13:00] importance for it and convey that to your kid too, then I think that'll help with, the buy in. So all of those are great things for parents, but let's talk about how this might work from a teacher perspective. And you have a lot of experience in that.

How can a teacher start integrating those routines into their day, what you talked about earlier? I think that teachers naturally do this, and I think that we tend to, it's the same as our personal routine at home, we tend to pick up different pieces, Each year and drop others and stuff like that.

I think having a personal greeting, you would see a lot of these videos also on tick tock, like of teachers that they let the kid pick do you want to high five this morning or like a hug? But greeting the kid at the door is that first step of that morning routine. I personally am a big fan of morning meeting, so my kids will come in the way that I organize my classroom leads them into their morning routine, so I want them to walk in, get their math notebook, which is [00:14:00] right when they come in on the left, they're color coded, each kid's notebook is a certain color in a certain pile, and then they're going to be forced because the way my classroom is to pass by the board, which has their seating chart on it for the day, mine changes daily because we do building thinking classrooms.

But then after that it's like they're gonna eat their breakfast and then they know that when the bell rings, we're going to come together and have a quick morning meeting. And I have middle school so it's rotating so some periods are anywhere between 45 and 75 minutes. So we're going to have a quick thing, whether it's a whip around with compliments and thank yous, I'll go over the schedule, I'll let them know what our learning target is for the day, all those types of things are what I would consider like the morning routine for the classroom.

That's good. And it's good for the students, but it's also good for the teacher to know exactly what you're going to be doing each day and To not waste time. I think that's one of the biggest things that I always loved about having a strong morning routine in my [00:15:00] classroom, is there was never going back to your backpack right before a lesson to get your paper.

And there was never, all those other things. So I do think a morning meeting is a good way to transition from home to school life. Yes. Where does consistency fit in? So consistency is huge. It's one of the kind of key aspects of any morning routine. If you don't do it consistent, consistently, then it's not a routine.

It has to be consistent. It has to be predictable and it has to be simple enough that you don't have to even necessarily write it down after, a while. The thing about consistency, it's what Montessori would call control of error. So basically, you want the kids to be successful, and there's different ways to do that.

A lot of what Montessori does is within the physical environment, like you were mentioning about the blocks earlier. You can't fit a large block into a small hole, right? That's control of error, because the kid knows they're doing it wrong, it doesn't fit. So basically, control of error In some sense is that [00:16:00] predictable morning routine like I want them to get out their math notebook.

They know that they're going to write the topic at the top. They know that we're going to have some type of, class activity and they're going to have to write a big idea at the bottom of their notes that summarizes what we did that day. Everything is very structured and predictable, which I think is built off of that idea.

So do you do a similar thing, what you mentioned earlier with a parent and a child building ownership by designing the plan together and things like that. Do you do the same thing with your classroom or do you just say, no, this is what it is and I'll teach you the routine? The way that I try to deal with that?

So I think of my, I think of my classroom routine as like in chunks. But then within the chunks, I have the kids help me with decisions throughout the day so we can do, let's say that we are going to have a test the next day, so we can do a review game, but I'll give the kids a choice, do you guys want to do this is our slot for review games, do you guys want to do a Kahoot, or would you guys rather do a musical chairs thing where you do a review sheet [00:17:00] together.

So just giving them choice and having them come up with it, and sometimes it's like those. Somewhat false choices. Do you want to go to bed now or in 15 minutes? But, do you guys want to do your homework first or should we, do a review game, that type of thing? So I try to have some input.

It works. It works. I remember when my youngest daughter was little, she did not ever want to go to bed, so we had a thing. And I guess it was a routine, a bedtime routine, but it was called the questions and my husband would just give her a million choices. Do you want this stuffed animal or this stuffed animal?

Do you want the door opened or closed? Do you want to sleep with the book or a toy? Like a million different little questions that did not matter. But to her, it mattered. Yeah, because they feel that control. At least they have some input into it and it's not being like imposed upon them. Okay, so we're gonna play a little game that is all about you and your [00:18:00] morning routine.

So I'm just gonna ask you a question and you can just finish it with the first thing that pops into your head. All right, sounds good. Okay, so the first thing I do when I wake up is I let the dogs out. We have a doggie door. Thank goodness I never have to get up and let the dogs out. We live in an area with like wildlife so I can't like let them out by themselves.

So I just let them out and watch them while I drink my coffee and then yeah. We have had a cat come in through the doggie door before. So that wasn't yours? No. Okay, my favorite morning ritual is It's probably just playing with my cats. Like I would in the, and right now I have kittens, which makes it extra fun.

But after I let the dogs out, I would go around the house and I would refill everyone's food and water. And then I would just spend a little bit of time, like cuddling with my cat. And I just love it when they purr and I just love cats. Aw, all those little kittens. [00:19:00] You said in your last one, you're drinking your coffee.

To me, that is my. That's my favorite part of my morning ritual. And my husband in the last couple of years has started bringing me a cup of coffee in bed every morning. And I don't know where that came from. I think he just did it one time and I made such a big deal about how much I appreciated it, that he did it again.

And then I just kept being like, Oh my gosh, this isn't the best part of my day. There's just something about. I don't know, something about, it's a simple act, but it's just, I don't know, it's just so sweet. So that is my favorite part for sure. I feel like at night when I get ready for bed, sometimes I just lay there and I think, Oh, in the morning I get to have coffee.

Yes, no, and that's the thing too with the kids too. So like you're saying, like you look forward to that small thing, like whether, you got a new type of coffee or you got a new creamer, like at the store, it's those small things. If you talk with your kid and find out is there something that would make you excited to start your morning routine?[00:20:00]

Then I think those are things that you incorporate and, that would be helpful. Yeah. And those little choices that you were talking about, because one of the other things I love about. When my husband brings me coffee is every morning. He picks a different coffee cup. So I have a collection of just weird ones that I picked up Goodwill or here or some, I don't know.

Anytime I see one, that's weird. I'm like, Ooh, I like this. We just went to Hawaii for a vacation and I wanted to get a souvenir. So we went to Goodwill and I said, I wanted to get, I want a coffee cup, that's actually Hawaiian. So I went and found one that was not like. Your typical souvenir that you get at a souvenir shop.

I wanted a real Hawaiian mug and now that's in my collection, but it's just like the fun choice of what today, it doesn't matter what cup, but it just adds to the, I don't know the fun of the day. Okay. So the next one is the most relaxing part of my morning is. Probably the shower. I would indulge in the morning and take a bit of a longer shower.

But I've also [00:21:00] come to as part of my morning routine, like I set an alarm for when I need to be out of the shower at the maximum. So that's been helpful too, because it actually lets me relax. Like I do my most of my morning routine. Then when I get in the shower, I know You know, I'd like to have a long shower, but if my alarm goes off, I know that's like my midpoint in my morning routine and I need to be there by that time, otherwise I'll be stressed for the second half, now the next one is my go to breakfast is. Overnight oats. I'm gonna say overnight oats. Yeah I like the different variety. I like the different, I like to think of ideas at the grocery store and think of the toppings that I can put in it and then I love the grab and go aspect because if I am in a hurry I can just throw it in my bag also and eat it at like on proper way.

Oh you've just inspired me because I keep thinking I'm gonna try some overnight oats because again on TikTok I keep seeing different recipes for them but I haven't ever actually. Tried it, except for when I bought overnight oats from the grocery store already prepared. [00:22:00] Yeah. Probably not the same. Okay, the next one is the quickest way to ruin my morning routine.

I'm going to say if the copier is down, like when I get to work. But it's gotta be either that or just spilling something on myself so that I have to change, it's gonna be one of those two. Okay, if you could add one more hour to your morning, what would you add to your routine? I would probably add reading something inspirational or watching something inspirational just to, give myself that boost and remind myself why I do what I do.

I actually like to watch America's Got Talent as like my inspiration. I see the young kids on there and I just see their potential and it just inspires me to remember why I do what I do. I'd probably watch AGT if we're being honest. I feel the same way when I watch it every time I, or maybe it's just the mood that I'm in.

I'm like, Oh, I should watch that because it's just on my DVR. And it's [00:23:00] always, if I'm feeling maybe uplifted myself, that's what I want to watch. Must go hand in hand. Okay. The last one is the most important thing I do for my students every morning is. I think check in and just ask them genuine questions about their day, their life, their weekend, if it's their birthday, that kind of thing.

You just learn so much about a kid that you just would surprise you. One of my students the other day checked in with him and I said, what are you going to be up to this weekend? Not to stereotype, but he's not an athletic kid that plays sports or anything, but he said, he's going to go ride jet skis.

And I found that I was like, I just didn't picture him as riding a jet ski, but it was cool to find that out, so I was getting, I guess that's why the morning meeting is so crucial. Yeah, that's a good time to, to find out things like that. Okay, so I mentioned your book, Morning Routines for Productive Teens.

So if there's anything else you want to share about it, we'd love to hear, but we also want to know [00:24:00] where we can find it. Yeah, awesome. Thank you. So currently my book, Morning Routines for Productive Teens, is only available on Amazon. It's available on Kindle as well as in a paperback version. And you can find everything to do with my book at alissalevybooks.

com, which is my name, AlissaLevyBooks. Com, and that will link you also to my Facebook page, or if you want to email me, it's also AlissaLevyBooks at gmail. And we'll have all of this in the show notes, so people can just go to the show notes and click those links as well. Perfect. I hope for it to be in more widespread distribution soon, but right now it's okay.

I'm so glad that you decided to come on and talk to us about this. Everything you say, I'm just in awe thank you. I appreciate that. This was really fun, and I'm really glad that I did this. You have so much good advice, and I feel like I could continue to talk to you for another hour, and you would continue to have more and more ideas and insights.