Morning Time is the very first part of our school day- in a lot of ways, it’s the bread and butter of what we’re about. In this show, I’m chatting about what morning time looks like for us right now.
This is the second in a series on How We Homeschool. I’m airing live on Periscope, and playing them back for you (complete with show notes) here.
Want to see all of my Scopes? Head to sarahmackenzie.tv to see them all.
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Links from today’s show:
- How we use spiral notebooks
- Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus by Amy Grant
- Shepherd Me O God by Gretchen Harris
- Sermon on the Mount memory work, available at Anne Voskamp
- My Path to Heaven by Geoffrey Bliss, S.J.
- Jotham’s Journey by Arnold Ytreeide (not probably recommended for kids younger than 6)
- Bartholomew’s Passage by Arnold Ytreeide
- Tabitha’s Travels by Arnold Ytreeide
- Amon’s Adventure by Arnold Ytreeide
- The QuickStart Guide to Great Conversations with Your Kids
- Life of Our Lord for Children by Marigold Hunt
- Picture Study Portfolios from SimplyCharlotteMason.com
- Shakespeare in 3 Steps from SimplyCharlotteMason.com (recommended for Grades 6-12)
- How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig
- Read-Aloud Revival Podcast Episode with Ken Ludwig
- Adam McKeown’s Young Reader’s Shakespeare series
- Draw Europe with Kristin J. Draeger
- ArtK12.com, Kristin’s J. Draeger’s site
- Your Morning Basket — a podcast with Pam Barnhill
- Pam’s Morning Basket Guide— an excellent resource to help you get started
It really can be that simple?!?! I’m kicking myself at how crazy our Morning Time Binder is. Crazy, therefore, it doesn’t get done. So going to simplify starting next week. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You too, Ann-Marie? I will pray we can both be faithful in the little things!
I can’t seem to access video#2. The first was through Youtube. Do I have to have a Twitter acct for the second one? I hope not :-(
Sincerely,
Laurle
I changed it to a Youtube video, Laurie- see if that’s better?
Hey! This was great! I have been trying to integrate morning time into our homeschool. We use MODG & as you probably know, there is a LOT of memory work. I have tried to shoehorn individual memory work into MT & it’s not working because it is just.too.much! Seeing how simple your MT is really helpful. I am going to dial it back and make it EASY. Hmmm, maybe school can be fun after all??
I was interested in how you manage co-ops this year with your toddler set? I have a large family & the last birth was twins, lol. They are crawling and soon to be walking, so you feel my pain. I opted out of all activities this year, because the kids really need to give the kids an education & right now I can’t do both (but I really miss it!). How is co-op going? Are you stuck in the nursery, or does someone come to watch the small peeps on those days?
Thanks so much for sharing your day! I wish i could have had these examples when I was first starting to homeschool.
Well, “stuck” in the nursery technically, but I like it actually. :) I get to sit and chat with all the other mamas while the toddlers play and the bigs are at class, so… it works! We’re only in there for 2 hours, and then we go do lunch/recess with everyone else.
I made myself a checklist for co-op days so I know EXACTLY what we need to walk out the door without having to use limited brain power to remember. Aaaaand remember, I’m extraverted, so I feel more energized by co-op days than I do by at-home days. By a LONG shot.
:)
It it bad that I am relieved to know I’m not the only tense mom at morning time? (Or anytime really?) trying to work on that! Thanks for this, it was helpful!
This was amazing!!! So helpful, love that you broke every detail down as to what and how you do morning time. This really mystified things for me and made it feel so attainable!!
One of my favorite quotes is from Martin Luther, who said “We sing our theology”! I loved your reasoning behind why you are singing hymns/songs with your kids! So many times throughout my life, it has been a song that the Lord has brought to my mind to remind me of His truth and goodness and grace in my life.
I really really really love Keith and Kristin Getty’s Irish modern hymns! gettymusic.com We are singing “In Christ Alone” this term in our morning time.
Thank you again for your fabulous blog and podcasts and scopes-!
Okay, so I’m watching this recap of this periscope and girl, I know what you are up against with the twins. I had my twins when our oldest was 6.5 – So now, we have survived toddler hood with the twins and have kids ages 12,10,9,7, and the twins turn 6 in a couple weeks. We look back and aren’t sure how we survived..lol. I was sick and didn’t know it and well, life was nuts. ….off to watch your previous ps. ;)
You’re probably going to laugh, but our morning time routine seems so unsophisticated next to yours. LOL. All ours literally is is: Bible story followed by a few questions, picture book readaloud for my non-readers (2,4,5, and7), and Chapter Book readaloud for my readers (8,9, and 11). I repeat something similar after lunch with my older kids. (13,15, and 16). I’m feeling like I should do more!
Thanks so much for your these informative updates! Gives me a fresh wind for our new term starting soon :) Quick question for you….I love your binder that you use. What size is it? I thought it looked like 1 or 1.5 but couldn’t tell.
Also, you mentioned in the video that you printed out lyrics to the hymns in your kids notebooks. Do they have a separate 3 ring binder in addition to their spiral notebooks? Or do you handwrite or print/paste the lyrics inside their spiral notebooks? Or do you just keep a copy for each child in your “Morning Time” tab within your notebook and pass it out when its time to sing?
Thanks so much!
My binder is only 1″ but it’s not quite big enough, I’m noticing, so I think I’d recommend a 1.5″.
As for the lyrics to the song– each of my kids has a tab in their regular binder that says “Morning Time” and we keep their printouts behind that. You can find out more about that here: https://readaloudrevival.com/scope-1
:) Sarah
Wow! That was fun, Sarah!
I must say you have such a beautiful singing voice.
We are learning Doxology too and I love your voice much better than what I have downloaded from Amazon :) SO lovely!
Our MT is longer and complicated, but, I must say that I love MT. We tend to loop it {thank you and Pam} so when things go awry and with three boys they do often, I can pick it up again next time :) It is by far the best part of our day. I think that is why I make it a bit more than it needs to be. We all do history together and cover it in MT. We are all big history fans so we get to chat it up a bit then ;) Do your kiddos do their history separately or do you read aloud later to them? Also I know how much you love reading aloud, how do you schedule that into your day?
Loving the scopes! Thanks for all that you do, sweet friend!
My kids do history at our co-op, so we just listen to a chapter of the Story of the World audio book and then they have their other history reading/discussion happen as a part of co-op.
I’m still struggling a bit with setting a good read-aloud time (blush) – we tried doing it at toddler nap but that only worked 1-2 days a week. I’m going to try valiantly to do 20 minutes of reading aloud at the end of our MT this week and see if that works.
I’m struggling heartily with the when-to-read-aloud-when-toddler-twins-are-running-amok phase!
Hi Sarah! You are so inspirational! Thank you for taking the time to share yours and other’s wisdom with the rest of us. I love RAR and just got your book in the mail. No twins, but I had #4 & #5 20 months apart and there has been very little rest (in both senses!) for awhile. I’m looking forward to getting back on track through simplifying. I was wondering what kind of co-ops you do. We moved recently and left an amazing co-op behind. I thought it would be easy to find another co-op to step into, but I was wrong. The co-ops here are extremely exclusive and fill up quickly. I’ve tried starting my own without success. I do have a couple of options still open to me. I just need to figure out which will be the best fit. Since you are in two co-ops I was wondering if you could tell me what kind they are and how the organized. If you can! Thanks!
Thank you for this! An aha moment was when you said you let the older kids help watch toddlers! Can you explain that a bit? I think it would help a lot! God bless, Jen
Enjoyed you video….I did grab a cup of coffee and listened to the entire video ;-). Thanks for the tips!
Do you have any feedback on how it’s going to memorize as a family? I’m guessing everyone moves at a different pace. Do you move on when most seem to have it memorized? Right now, I’m using a master list of passages and everyone moves on to the next passage at their own pace. We also use their memory work for copywork. BUT, I like the idea of memorizing the same thing as a family at the same time. WOuld love to hear how you handle this. THanks!
How do you handle screen time? What if you’ve got kids that are rushing through independent time or their to-do list in order to get to their Minecraft time for the day (just tossing out a hypothetical here ;) )
What expectations should 11 year old’s have in terms of “free time”? I know a couple 11 year olds who seem to think that anything after 2pm is crouching on their “free time” and then they still have to go out for outdoor time, which is this tremendous burden for some reason.
Melissa Wiley (melissawiley.com) has this great rule that screens can be on from 1-3pm and that’s it. I think that’s a great way to manage screens.
Because— YES. They can take over if we let them! Happens here too, for sure.
Right now, my 10yo son is the only one who really wants to do much with screens, and he’s grounded from them for a month, so that’s keeping things really simple. :P
It’s my toddlers I have to watch out for! They ask for shows all the time and I cave way too easily.
When my 10yo isn’t grounded from screens, we usually say that ALL of his schoolwork has to be done neatly and well (checked by me) and ALL of the chores have to be done well (checked by me) to earn screens. And then I set a timer and (try to) remember to go hunt him down to take away the iPad when it goes off.
As for an 11yo’s free time, I TOTALLY get what you’re saying. It drives me absolutely bonkers when my kids think anything is crouching on their free time! Humph.
I’m not sure I have a lot of great advice, except maybe you could add in some pockets of free time during the day (30 minutes here and there) that are scheduled, so that they know when it’s coming and can look forward to it without it taking up the whole second half of the day?
Hey Sarah!!
You have me looking at Catholic hymns now and am so motivated to do morning time now that I see how simplified it can be!! Anyway, was wondering if you have a good CD or something I could buy for Catholic hymns. I am finding Michael Talbot on Amazon, but not sure the kids will enjoy that or not. Do you use music or do you all do acapella?? Thanks so much!!
Try Gretchen Harris instead:
http://amzn.to/1WSLNBx
Thank you sooooo much for such great periscopes!
What else is included in your kid binders – besides the hymn portion?
They also have their memory work in there, and then anything they need for math (I think they have a few tabs for that), as well as assignments for their other subjects, like spelling or writing.
Thank you so much for this! I stumbled across your sites/ podcasts a short while back and after watching this post implemented morning time the very next day. It has been amazing! We went from pulling teeth to get my kids to sit with me, to them now requesting it. I got teary today when I realized they were singing our hymn from memory – Tis to Sweet to trust in Jesus! We’ve tried various ways to have this time together and yours was so simple – it’s been working! Love gleaning from your posts and resources, sometimes I feel very alone with this HS approach way up in Canada – and I feel like you are a friend who I can hear from to encourage me to keep going! Thank you and God Bless you. xoxo
I have been searching your site for this, but I haven’t been able to find it — How do you manage chores for your kids? Do you have them written somewhere? I’m wondering if they should be integrated with the school work checklist (to minimized # of places they have to look) or if they should be a separate thing.
I’d love to see how you are handling this.
I’m fairly new to AmongstLovelyThings, but I’m enjoying it immensely and I find this series on ‘How We Homeschool’ so helpful. Thank you!
I haven’t written about it because I don’t really have a good system for it! (blush) The person I always ask about these kinds of things is Mystie at simplifiedorganization.com :)
Yes! I love Mystie’s blogs and have been thoroughly studying what she has to say about chores. When I see her chore routine it seems insurmountable to me at the moment. I would have a complete mutiny on my hands! But I’m sure with baby steps we can get to where the kids can actually be a significant help with the housework, and also be able to get their lessons done too. Right now we either get all of our housework done OR all of our school work, never both, and many times neither! … working on it
During the homily today our priest said, “You don’t measure success by how many times you fall, but by how many times you get up”. Your book and videos help me to want to “get back up again” and give it another try even if in the past I had not had the outcome for which I was hoping. Even Jesus got up when he carried His very heavy cross, so we should be able to get up with our crosses as well.
I was looking at the books you have listed here and I was wondering in what way is the book “My Path to Heaven” Catholic? The book description on Amazon makes it seem like a fantastic resource and I would like to be able to take advantage of it! 😊
The most “Catholic” thing about it is its mention of the sacraments (holy orders, reconciliation, etc), I think. I would bet that most protestants would love this book. It’s beautifully and masterfully done.
I have looked all over etsy and your website, where do you get your headbands?
Love, love the spiral notebooks, I’m looking forward to using it next school year.
Hi Sarah,
I’m wondering your opinion on using the Taming of the Shrew set from SimplyCharlotteMason. I am considering buying that – but wondered how it worked for you.
Thank you for your homeschool enthusiasm – it is contagious! :)
Kim
This was SO helpful! I’m trying to implement a Morning Time this year and this outline gave me confidence and inspiration. Thank you! Since this scope was last year, I wondered if you ended up liking the Draw Europe book. We’re studying US history, so was considering the Draw the USA book, but wanted to see if you liked her approach to geography.
I am wondering the same thing! Would love some follow-up on this!
Yes! Sarah did like these books and they are newly revised! Happy drawing!
I’m trying to find the memory versus sheets that you talk about at 3:13 in your morning time video. I’ve been looking on Ann Voskamp’s website and can’t find the file with more then one quote per sheet?
P.S. Just found your website… and I’m loving it!!!