When you say “morning work”–are you referring to the very beginning of the day before your routines get started or are do you mean the work students do while you are meeting with small groups?

@deb1424 When my students enter the room in the morning they do their “morning chores”. This consists of unpacking, emptying their folder, and signing up for lunch. Then instead of traditional morning work, my students book shop and read. This works really well for me since I do not have have work to correct and I do not have to worry about kids that come in late or go to breakfast. When I did morning work it seemed that some students took all day to catch up on the work. Having students shop for new books and then read also sets a nice tone for the day. All students are successful and I do not have to worry about explaining any worksheets. Hope this helps.

I do Morning Meetings, http://responsiveclassroom.org/ has info about it. Their principals match really well with Daily 5. It does a lot for building relationships and a community of learners.