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When I first started homeschooling, I took a very rigid approach. In my head, homeschooling looked exactly like school at home. As soon as school started we were sitting at the table, had books opened to the next lesson, and were ready to learn. There were lots of tears from my son and a lot more from me.
Early on, I was introduced to the concept of Morning Time (also known by many other names, such as Morning Basket, Circle Time, Together Time, etc). I did not really understand the value of such a time in our day. In my mind it was just a time to review the daily schedule with the child and maybe talk about the calendar and the weather. Surely we did not need to waste our time with that.
Last year, we began assembling a Morning Basket and starting our day with Morning Time and it has revolutionized our homeschool days. Our Morning Time gets our whole family focused on the school day and has been great for family bonding.
Everyone’s morning time looks different, so here is a quick peek into my morning basket!
Our Morning Time Schedule:
Worship Songs (two)
Prayer Requests
Toddler Bible Time
Poem
Nursery Rhyme
Calendar Time
Morning Time "Loop"
Worship Time
Each day, we turn on our Spotify Worship playlist. I start the playlist on the same song each morning. This year we are using Rend Collective’s “Lighthouse.” The children know that once the song starts they have until the end of the song to clean up what they are doing, go use the restroom or get water, and be in the living room for school. This holds true for me as well! I am often the one running into the room during the last seconds as I am scurrying to get in one more chore.
I play the list on shuffle so that the second song each day is a random song from our worship list. We *attempt* to sing this song together. My kids are not always in the mood to sing or do not know the words, yet. That is OKAY! I let them sit on the couch and listen to the words. The only rule is that they can not distract others during worship.
A more musically gifted family might chose to perform their own worship music by singing or playing instruments. Families that want the words available on the screen can look up videos on YouTube. For our family, music streamed through the T.V. works great.
Prayer Requests
After worship, we all sit on the floor in a circle and I ask if anyone has a prayer request. They all raise their hands. My kids are all seven and younger, so we do get some odd requests. We pray for things like “to have a good school day,” “my feet,” “that cows make milk,” and “no bad dreams.” Occasionally, I will ask them to pray for a specific prayer need of a family member or a friend.
Toddler Bible Time
After prayer requests, we read a Bible Story from one of our toddler Bibles. We have family devotionals at breakfasts and we have a separate Bible class as part of our main curriculum later in the morning, so this is specifically geared towards my little kids. Right now we are reading through the Beginner’s Bible, but we have also used the Preschooler’s Bible and the Rhyme Bible.
This would be a good point to work on any Scripture memory verses if you do not have that time built in your day elsewhere. Families with older children might also prefer to read passages from Scripture or do family devotions at this point.
Poetry Time
We read through a poem each morning from different poetry books. I love the Poetry for Young People series, we have read through a few of those. My plans this year are to read Now We are Six by A.A. Milne, A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost.
I don’t expect my children to analyze these poems. We read each selection and briefly discuss what the poem was about or how it made us feel. The purpose of this poetry time is to expose the children to beautifully written poems and to help them appreciate poetry.
This is also a good point to work on any poem your family is memorizing togehter.
Nursery Rhyme
Once again, I have small children. We add in a nursery rhyme each day from various books of rhymes. I think of this as poetry for the little kids. If there is a song or fingerplay that goes along with the rhyme, we will sing it also. As the children get older, we will probably drop this part of our routine or replace it with another reading or activity.
Calendar Time
Our whole family goes and looks at a monthly calendar. My Big Brother points to the current day and Little Brother tells us what the number is. Big Brother then reads of the full date and our whole family counts the days up to the current date. Little Brother has learned how to count to 31 using this method and Big Brother has learned his days of the week and months of the year using this method. Hopefully, Little Sister will follow suit.
This would be a great time to talk about the weather or discuss any plans for the day with your children. Those with older children might only use this time to discuss schedules, chores, and meal duties.
Morning Time Loop
We keep a handful of other books in our morning basket and we choose one or two selections each day. I call this our Morning Time Loop; however, I don’t do them in a consecutive order per se. The additional books in our basket are The Year at Maple Hill Farm, a map skills book, a logic book, a McGuffey or phonics reader, and a nature read aloud.
The Year at Maple Hill Farm
Towards the beginning of each month, we read a two page spread from The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen. This beautiful book illustrates the changes a farm goes through each month of the year. It is a lovely way to introduce the change of seasons to little children.
Map Skills
My boys have both loved maps. This is not always a part of our morning basket, but it is currently on our loop as one of our miscellaneous activities. We do one page in our map skills book once or twice per week. When we complete the map skills book I may add a
Logic Book
We usually keep a book from Critical Thinking Company in our Morning Basket. Some of my favorite options are Verbal Mind Benders, DooRiddles, and Building Thinking Skills. Any sort of riddle book would be great here!
McGuffey Reader
Because I have a pre-reader, I keep a book in our book basket to work on phonics. Typically we use a McGuffey reader, an Abeka reader, or a Bob Book. As we begin All About Reading, we might put our AAR reader in the basket and do the “story” lessons during Morning Basket time. Reading aloud for siblings is a big reward for my young readers.
Nature Read Aloud
Once or twice per week we read from a nature reader. Right now we are reading The Burgess Bird Book. We have also used Christian Liberty Nature Readers.
Other Morning Basket Suggestions
When you are first starting out a Morning Time, keep it simple! For young kids, you might only have a 10-15 minute Morning Time. For older children it might last up to an hour!
When picking out activities for your Morning Time, start with things that you would like your family to do together that most of the children enjoy doing. Remember to add in a few fun activities as well as academic ones to make the time more engaging. Morning Time is supposed to be enjoyable. You might consider joke books, a simple game, or read aloud time.
Morning Time is a great place to fit in some activities that get left off most days, like flash card reviews and poetry memorization.
Morning Time does not have to take place in the morning! You might want to rename it if you move it to a different time of day. While I enjoy using Morning Time as a way to ease into the school day, many families find that it works better to do over lunch, during the afternoon, or at evening with Dad.
You don’t have to expect all of your children to sit through all of morning time. If you have children that are not expected to sit through all of morning time, keep the activities they might skip towards the end. For our family, my oldest child has to be present for all of Morning Time. The little kids have to stay through Bible, although they usually make it until the end unless it is Nature Read Aloud day (the stories are a little long and don’t always have pictures). For families with pre-readers and older siblings, you might allow the older child to wander off while you are doing work with your pre-reader towards the end of Morning Time.
Above all, enjoy this time as a family!
What do you do for your Morning Time?