Morning time is one of my favorite parts about homeschooling, and I would do it even if my kids were in public school in some form or fashion. Since my oldest was able to sit in a high chair, I’ve sang songs to her with intention. My goal as a mother is to provide a home that is a a rich feast of learning, a place with safety, structure, and warmth. Morning time is one of the foundational blocks of the atmosphere of learning that I want to foster, with the intention of children unfolding to be the best of what God planned for them, and ultimately life-long learners. The pre-school years are for another day, but today, I want to talk about what I have planned for my kindergartener and second-grader.

We start our time off with calendar time, where we go through the month, day, and weather. We talk about how we’re feeling and how we all slept and we say a prayer. Since we have breakfast with my two-year old as well, I usually take this opportunity to do her (tiny) “school time” while the older girls start in on their food and wake up a little bit. Her school time consists of singing the ABCs, counting to ten, and talking about colors, shapes, things like that.

Bible: We are reading through the book of Ruth this semester, as well as memorizing six different verses and learning about a Christian historical figure by reading through Hero Tales: A Family Treasury of True Stories From the Lives of Christian Heroes by Dave and Neta Jackson. For my second-grader, I want to help her form a habit of personal daily study in this area, so I purchased an age-appropriate workbook to go through with her.

Poetry: This year, we are reading through Julie Andrew’s Treasure for All Seasons. It’s such a beautiful book and I’m looking forward to working through it.

Artist Study: We are working through an Autumn Impressionist Study by For the Love of Homeschooling.

Language: For foreign language, we are continuing Spanish. I plan on giving Songschool Spanish a better try this year. It did not work out for us last year. At morning time specifically, I’ll be doing vocabulary and flashcards with the girls.

Math Riddle/Word Problem: We love the Bedtime Math book series. They have three so far and the word problems are themed daily and span a large skill set.

Miscellaneous/Other: Sometimes I use morning time to do our read-aloud. Also, I occasionally show them the World Watch News free video on youtube.

Music: This really isn’t anything excessive, just a way to finish off morning time. We are rotating through Vivaldi, The Beatles, Beethoven, and Ella Fitzgerald this semester. I have a playlist on Spotify for each, and I’ll play one playlist a week, then after four weeks I will repeat the rotation. We also will keep a brief fact sheet with a picture of each artist on our big bulletin board.

I know this all sounds like a lot, but it takes us less than 45 minutes to get through and it’s lovely and cozy and enriching all at once. I usually enjoy a maple latte during this time and really try to take it slowly, intentionally, and with a lot of grace for changing seasons/plans.