Many families are wondering how in the world they are supposed to homeschool when they have multiple kids running around, all needing different things. While our kids are fairly closely spaced (almost-9, 7, 4.5), one could still easily feel overwhelmed with how to provide an education for a 3rd grader, 2nd grader, and rising kindergartener who all have unique reading, math, writing, and comprehension skills. But, remember the one-room schoolhouse from Little House on the Prairie?!??!!? It still works! Only, now, the schoolhouse is your living room or kitchen table or backyard patio, and the teacher is not some sweet innocent 19-year-old standing anxiously at the blackboard, but a weary mom or dad downing a second cup of near-cold coffee yelling at their pajama-clad kids to !come do school! while they dash off one last work email and grab their bin of books and a glass of water so they can read to their kids for an hour.
Sounds glorious, right?
Actually, Morning Time really can become pretty special and provide a solid anchor for your homeschool routine.
Although it has all kinds of connotations in the homeschool world, at its core, Morning Time is a structured time when you read aloud from multiple subjects and efficiently expose your kids to a feast of ideas. Kids of multiple ages can engage with Morning Time because YOU pick whatever subjects you want to focus on, and you can specifically choose subjects that will speak to all of your kids. Subjects that typically work well with Morning Time are poetry, music, art study, history, science, literature, fables/mythology, math facts, calendar, spelling words/vocabulary, religion/faith, and foreign language.
When Bodie (our oldest) started Kindergarten, I did Morning Time at the kitchen table while he was eating breakfast. I also had a toddler and a baby so they were more or less entertained – and contained! – with their cheerios and pancakes. I would sing the ABC song, count to 100, sing the days of the week and the months of the year, read a couple of funny poems, and read a book from our Five in a Row list (an excellent literature-based curriculum for the younger crowd!!). If you’re thinking this sounds a lot like a nursery “circle time”, you’d be right! That is basically what it was. The best thing is that by the end of the first month, Jasper (then 3.5) was ALSO saying the ABC song, counting, singing, and answering questions about the book we were reading.
As the kids have gotten older, Morning Time has become more complex and longer. This past year, I spent 1-1.5hrs 2-3 mornings a week reading to them. I read (and encouraged memorization of poems) from A Child’s Anthology of Poetry; Story of the World vol. 1; Aesop’s Fables; Classic Fairy Tales; Nature Study based off of Exploring Nature With Children; Science books; Fun Facts of the Human Body; Healthy Living from the Start; Our 24 Family Ways (character development); First Language Lessons; and the first 4 books of the Harry Potter series. I also occasionally added in math facts for Bodie and Jasper, the ABC and calendar songs for Emerson, and some other random read-alouds based on what we were studying in other subjects. Towards the end of the year, I switched to world geography and began working through the “Around the World in Picture Books” Beautiful Feet curriculum during Morning Time.
When I first learned about Morning Time, I had a lot of questions. Now I can answer some of them!
Do your kids really just sit quietly and listen to you read?
Yes and no. When they were little, food kept them busy and I sometimes still use that tactic. But, I eventually went around the house and collected a bunch of quiet activities: playdough, kinetic sand, legos, coloring books, math manipulatives, magnatiles, beads & pipe cleaners, rubix cubes, whiteboards & markers, etc. When we sit down for Morning Time, the kids choose an activity and they play while I read (baking sheets for the playdough & sand!). There is often couch-jumping and pacing around the room. I do not let kids sit on my lap as I am overflowing with books and quickly run out of goodwill if children are clambering all over me. I know some families who have their kids practice knots, or knitting, or specific handicraft kinds of things during this time. You need to give your kids something to keep their hands busy, their minds active, their ears open, and their mouths closed. The first few times might be challenging, but once your kids settle in, it can go pretty smoothly.
How do you transition to Morning Time from your normal everyday routine?
When we first started, I worked it into breakfast or lunchtime. The kids were all sitting at the table and a captive audience, so it was a natural transition. When that stopped working so well, I tried a more interesting approach. I went on Youtube and found a short piece of a famous instrumental song that was upbeat and exciting, and I would blast that on the stereo as a “call to Morning Time.” I switched it up every few weeks and considered it another part of their musical education. I mean, every kid needs to know the theme song to the Lone Ranger, the Star Wars intro, and the leitmotif for Indiana Jones. Some people make it a bit more refined by lighting a candle, saying a prayer, singing a song, etc. You gotta find what works for your family.
Do you really just read everything back to back to back?
Yes. I admit that I was very skeptical that this would work. But, I literally say, “We’re going to learn a new poem this week…… Ok, now we’re going to read from our history book…. For our nature study this week, we are going to read about birds…. Who remembers what a noun is? …. Do you remember where we left off in Harry Potter?” And shockingly, they can just follow along. Of course, I review as appropriate – “Do you remember our history reading from yesterday? That king in Mesopotamia was taking over Greece…” But, for the most part, they are able to hold it all in their little heads.
Do you read everything to them every day? Doesn’t that take forever?!?!
No, I don’t read everything at every session of Morning Time. Because I know they can handle it, I plan for about 1-1.5hrs. There are varying approaches to how to schedule everything, but the most common ones are called “Block scheduling” and “Loop Scheduling.” For the Block scheduling, you might make a list like this: Poetry, History, Science, Literature. And then just insert whatever read-aloud you’re doing for that subject into that block (ex. Shel Silverstein, Ancient Egypt, Space book, Charlotte’s Web). Loop scheduling might look like a longer list: poetry, history, science, literature, music, art, language, grammar, math facts. So maybe on Monday you get through poetry, history and science; on Tuesday you do literature, music, art and language; on Friday, you finish with grammar and math facts, and then you “loop” back up to poetry and pick up where you left off.
We use more of a block schedule. I aim for Morning Time 2-3 times a week, with 2 days being similar, though covering different subjects, and then Friday being its own time with a specific focus on health/body. It might look something like this: Monday – poetry, history, nature study, language arts, read-aloud; Wednesday – poetry, fables, science book, character development, read-aloud; Friday – poetry, health reading, yoga/exercise video, read-aloud.
What about your preschooler? Doesn’t he kind of get left out?
Not at all! I’ll be honest – I did feel a little guilty for a long time that I wasn’t doing anything “preschool-specific” with Emerson. I was so focused on trying to get the bigs to do their work that I wasn’t excited about teaching Emerson his letters. BUT, when I thought about Morning Time and found myself going hoarse twice a week as I read to them, I realized that my four-year-old was getting THOUSANDS of words every week. Quality words. Meaningful poetry from brilliant poets. Engaging stories from history. An SAT-worthy vocabulary. And he was hearing about all kinds of big ideas. It may not look like a traditional preschool experience, but his little mind is regularly filled up with beautiful things. In some families, the littles might not be ready for all of this. And that is OK!! Just try to find a way to keep them alive while you read, and it’s all good.
Everything I’ve read about Morning Time makes it sound so perfect and cozy and lovely and candles and hymns and…. I just don’t think that’s for us.
We have three boys under 9. There are not many candles lit in our house. Our Morning Time is not perfect or cozy. Sometimes it’s me yelling at the kids to be quiet and stop jumping on the coffee table. Sometimes I have to impatiently sweep all their activities away and sit them on the couch and quiz them to make sure they were listening. Sometimes we have to migrate just to change up the dynamic and keep them engaged – poetry at the table, history in the living room, Harry Potter outside. All the candles and the hymns and the prayers and the musical call to action are just props to try and get you what you really want – Connection. Engagement with you, the ideas, the concepts, the information. We all know that ritual helps us remember, it helps us focus, it sets that time apart as something special. Without ritual of some sort, it’s easy for that time to just be lumped in with everything else that happens that day. Your Morning Time has to be as individual and unique as your family. Choose to focus on those things that are meaningful and important to YOU. We chose poetry because 1) Matt memorized poetry in college and it has significance for him and 2) because I’ve always liked the idea of memorizing poetry but never did it. I added in art study because I’ve always wished that I had a better grasp of it. We chose Harry Potter for our read-aloud because our kids are OBSESSED with it and it fueled their imagination for months. I choose our science/nature books based on what the kids are interested in. You CAN buy Morning Time plans, but I think the better ones are those you make yourself. Boxed curriculums can also lend themselves nicely to Morning Time as you can just fly through multiple subjects all at one time.
Does it have to be done in the morning?
Nope. Although homeschoolers might like it to be true, there’s really nothing special about getting everything done by lunch. If it makes more sense to do “Morning Time” after lunch, great! You could make it part of the bedtime routine if you wanted to. I call it Morning Time because it started at breakfast for us, but no matter when we do it, the kids still know it as “Morning Time.” There’s also nothing special about the name. Call it whatever you want. For a while, I tried out “Team Time” because it was stuff we all did together. That worked ok, but I eventually reverted back to the usual. If you’re searching online, you’ll commonly see it referred to as Circle Time, Morning Basket, or Morning Meeting. One blogger I follow calls it “Coffee and Books.” Make it work for you.
Where can I learn more about Morning Time?
Pam Barnhill is currently the homeschooling queen of the Morning Time concept. But, here are a few other links for examples of Morning Time routines and rhythms. I’ve included several secular links here. Faith-based Morning Time posts are much easier to come by.
https://thislittlehomeofmine.com/homeschool-morning-time/
https://homeschoolingwithdyslexia.com/best-homeschool-hack-morning-time/
https://dearlyndsey.com/creating-simple-secular-morning-basket/
http://www.homegrownlearners.com/home/our-simple-morning-basket
