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What exactly is Morning Time? How do I use a Morning Time Basket in our homeschool? This article addresses these two popular questions about this particular approach to homeschooling.

WHY WE NEEDED A CHANGE TO OUR HOMESCHOOL ROUTINE

For the longest time, our homeschool routine has been the same….

Breakfast.

Clean up the kitchen table.

Bible and prayer.

Start homeschool lessons.

Unfortunately, many mornings were chaotic. I would hurry the girls through their breakfast so that we could get our homeschooling started. Then as we did our lessons, I would rush everything along… because let’s face it, in my family, everyone’s happier if homeschooling takes place in the morning. If any of our lessons flow into the afternoon, there’s guaranteed frustration and mayhem.

Our routine wasn’t feeling good. I hated the fact that some days, I really didn’t feel like homeschooling. I was frustrated that at times I resented the “work” of homeschooling. I was embarrassed to recognize that my kitchen table had turned into a classroom desk like the ones often found in brick and mortar schools.

Then, a month ago, I stumbled onto a post that was shared on the Alberta Home Education Association Facebook page. This post was all about a morning basket that a family explored as their curriculum. I admired the pretty pictures and thought, “Well isn’t that nice for them.”

Yet, a seed was planted and a week later I encountered the Better Together Guide on Pam Barnhill’s Website. I was immediately sold on the idea and started my journey of morning time.

Morning time has had such a dramatic impact on all of our lives! I’m astounded by my children’s receptiveness and eagerness to participate. I’m stunned that my 4 1/2 year old, who previously would do everything she could to interrupt homeschooling, is now completely engaged in almost everything we do! Most importantly, I feel relaxed, joyful, and peaceful about our homeschool time.

I’m still working through the modules in the Better Together Guide, but I thought I would take the opportunity to share what our mornings look like.

What is morning time and how do we include it in our #homeschool schedule? Come see an example! Click To Tweet

Our homeschool routine was feeling uninspired and dull. Then I introduced morning time and our homeschool days were transformed! We now have the peaceful, relaxing, and inspiring homeschool I always dreamed of!

WHAT DOES A MORNING TIME ROUTINE LOOK LIKE?

Morning time starts the same way every day. The thought for how to begin the ritual of morning time was inspired by my previous early childhood career….

I begin with a song and the children come to me:

Good morning, good morning,

And how do you do? 

Good morning, good morning,

I’m fine how are you?

Then I sing one of the French songs which I can articulate well:

Bonjour mes amis, bonjour,

Bonjour mes amis, bonjour,

Bonjour mes amis, bonjour mes amis,

Bonjour mes amis, bonjour…

Bonjour!

Of course, I have to sing it in English too:

Hello my friends, hello.

Hello my friends, hello.

Hello my friends, hello my friends,

Hello my friends, hello…

Hello!

I take turns asking both of my children, the stuffed bunny, the stuffed bears, our family dog, and assorted other important “friends” how they’re doing and after everyone has responded, we dig into our morning basket.

Our Morning Time Schedule

Please note, I hesitate any time I share a schedule because realistically… schedules change, sometimes daily, but I want you to get an idea of how our morning flows.

7:30 – Breakfast

8:00 – Gather at the living room couch as I sing our morning time songs

Faith building

  • Read daily Bible devotional.
  • Sing a couple hymns or worship songs from my YouTube playlist.
  • Say a prayer. We have a set of prayer cards that we created and we choose someone different to pray for every day.

Recitation

  • Memory work (the children practice reciting a scripture or a poem).

Read aloud language arts

  • I read one chapter from a classic piece of literature. We read Winnie the Pooh and have recently begun Dr. Doolittle.

Read aloud social studies

  • I read a chapter from a biography, or a section from Kayak magazine or Compassion Magazine, or we may listen together to a chapter of The Story of the World.

SQUILT (Super Quiet Uninterrupted Listening Time)

  • We study a piece of classical music 3 times per week and do related work. I love the SQUILT curriculum. It’s affordable, flexible, and fun for all of us!

Art

  • At this point in time we move over to the kitchen table and partake in an art activity. Watercolours, drawing, and clay are some of the girls’ favourites!

9:30 – Begin standard curriculum

  • Language arts and math are done daily.
  • Health, science, and social studies are done every few days.

I’ve included our schedule below so you have an idea of what our days look like. I check off what we do daily.

What is morning time and how do we include it in our homeschool schedule? Come check out our morning time routine!

What I love about our morning time is that the girls are eased into their day. We snuggle on the couch under a blanket and enjoy a peaceful transition into learning.

Their brains are awakened and activated by fellowship, quality literature, and fine music. Surprisingly, even though we added this 1 – 1 1/2 hours of “extra” stuff into our days, we are often done our homeschooling earlier than when we previously would just dive into studies.

Perhaps it’s because we’ve started our day in relationship – so my children respond better to me or maybe it’s because we warmed up our brains before diving into tough “work”. Regardless, the difference it’s made for me and my children is stunning.

I love our days together, I love our homeschool, and every morning I wake up excited to begin our morning time together.

Reflect:

I would love to hear if you have heard of morning baskets or if you would consider including something like this in your homeschool? Then, I invite you to share this post with your homeschool communities.

 



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Jennifer Bly
Jennifer Bly
Author of My Kitchen, My Classroom: An Introduction to Homeschool and creator of The Deliberate Mom. Jennifer writes about parenting, homeschooling, her faith, and life with her husband and two girls. Jennifer has a Bachelor of Applied Human Service Administration Degree with a specialization in Early Learning in Child Care.

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