Imagine the following scenario: You wake up on Monday morning. You're excited to get started on your week, but you also have some lingering weariness from the weekend. It was a good one but left you a little tired and whistful that it's passed. Still you go about your morning, have a good breakfast, and drive hopefully off to work. You imagine a few moments of easing into your morning, checking for any emails that may need your attention, greeting a co-worker, and completing an enjoyable task before tackling some of the harder assignments.
But when you arrive at work, you're greeted by your boss. He's spent the weekend looking over your latest report and he's not happy about it. In fact, he's furious.
On top of that, you arrive to find out that the contract you negotiated on Thursday has also fallen through over the weekend. That means five weeks of work down the drain and you have to start over. Suddenly this Monday morning has turned into a high-pressure situation and you find yourself trying to complete two very challenging assignments.
That's the way I've always pictured just jumping into a homeschool day. Roll out of bed, make the LONG commute to the dining room table, and ... start with Algebra???? No Thank You!
Thus Morning Time was born in our homeschool!
Morning time became a foundational part of our homeschool day out of necessity. A way of bridging the gap between waking up and charging full force into learning. A way of sweetening our morning, building shared experiences, and finding time for delight and beauty.
Now entering year 13 of our homeschool, morning time is still going strong. It's evolved over the years, changing and growing with my children. And even though my middle child is in high school and my youngest is finishing middle school, we still find enjoyment in our morning time routine.
So I thought I'd share with you how we're making morning time work with our older kids. How we hit the subjects that bring us the most joy and keep challenging them, even in their teen years.
Folksongs/Hymns:
I love the idea of learning hymns and folksongs in our homeschool. There's so much rich theology and history woven into music. However, I have one student who really hates singing and one who really loves it. So instead of requiring my kiddos to sing the songs, I use them as a call to Morning Time. We utilize Folksongs and Hymns on YT and rotate through Hannah's songs of the month. This way they hear each song every other day, and it give them 2-4 minutes to gather their things and meet at the table. My kiddo who loves to sing can do so and my other child just has to hear it and meet us to start. We do a song a day.
Memory Work:
We use a memory box system. I found a nice sterilite box from the Dollar Tree a few years ago and now it's filled to the brim with Scripture we've memorized over the years. We memorize Scripture, but this system would be great for any memory work you wish to have in your homeschool. Again, this is something we do every day.
Current Events:
We found World Watch News last year and love it. It's 10 min segments of world new presented at the student's level. It's very similiar to CNN10, but from a Christian perspective. And it's been great for me to learn what's going on in the world as well.
Bible:
We're continuing our way through Rod & Staff's Bible series. This year we're picking up about 1/4 of the way through level 7. Level 7 and 8 both go over the New Testament, specifically the culture, customs, and background of the time. And then the curriculum ties it into what Jesus was actually saying when He taught. I introduce the lesson on Monday mornings, the kids work independently throughout the week to cover the material, and then we go over and discuss on Friday mornings.
Ballet Study:
This year we're using Delightfully Feasting's Swan Lake study. It utilizes several easily available books to study the ballet from lots of different angles. We never done a ballet study of any sort, but thought it would be a good way to include an art field that we don't know much about. We chose to focus on Swan Lake as we'll be seeing a production in the fall. We do this once a week and this study will take us approximately 12 weeks.
Apologetics:
We're starting off with Cold Case Christianity for Kids. We'll be utilizing Warner's book as well as his online videos found on his Cold Case Academy website. We will also be touching on this subject once a week and this study will take us about 10 weeks.
Artist Study:
We've again using Ambleside Online's artist study. I love that this one is free and only takes about 5 min a week. It's taught us so much about artists we've never even heard of. This year we'll be studying Durer, Caravaggio, and Delacroix.
Shakespeare:
I'm trying Shakespeare ... AGAIN! We have tried over and over again, and this year I think I may have found a process that will work. We're using Lamb's Shakespeare and Nesbit's Shakespeare for Young Readers to get the gist of the play. Then we'll find a YT production to watch together, broken into approximately 12 weeks. I found where another homeschool mom used Chat GPT to break up the play into 12 parts, making it bite sized for morning time. We're going to watch the play rather than read it as that how it was originally meant to be enjoyed. I'll have a written copy for my 11th grader if she wishes to follow along with that as well. This will be paired with lots of discussion. We'll be studying As You Like It in the fall.
Finances:
Currently, we're working our way through Turn $100 into $1,000,000. We are going over about a chapter a week. After we finish that, we'll be moving on to other financial books geared toward teens.
Misc:
One of the misc items I have in our Morning Time is nature lore books. My son has really aged out of Burgess' Peter Rabbit series, but we're still enjoying it so we'll read a few chapters a week.
I also try to include picture books related to our Story of the World curriculum as they apply. It's a good way to whet their appetite for further study.
Read Alouds:
We always end our Morning Time with a read-aloud. I still like to read before bed, but as the kids have gotten older and are out more evenings of the week, we've also added a block of reading in our mornings so our books don't linger. I shared our Read Aloud List for 2024-25 on Instagram, but it's ever-growing. Sometimes we detour off that list, but I try to at least prioritize the read-alouds that go with our history curriculum.
So that's what I have planned so far for our 2024-25 Morning Time and how I'm making it work with older students.
Do you do Morning Time in your homeschool?
And what are some of your favorite resources?
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