What is morning time?
Morning Time is an hour or so set aside in the day to gather your children and study subjects that will order their affections towards truth, goodness, and beauty. If you are reading about Morning Time for the first time today, that can sound MUCH scarier than it is! Our family has started our school day with Morning Time for 5 years now and it has looked different each year, depending on our season of life. But I NEVER regret opening God’s Word with my children and memorizing a passage. Or diving into beautiful poetry together. Or reading great historical and biographical read-alouds around our table together. Morning Time is by FAR our favorite part of the school day. And do you want to know a little secret? I think my affections have been ordered towards truth, goodness, and beauty during these moments every bit as much as theirs have!
(As a side note, we are a homeschooling family. But traditionally schooling families can ABSOLUTELY use this concept as well. It may be a little more challenging to fit the time into a public/private school schedule, but I promise it will be worth it!)
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What does Morning time look like in our house?
One unique thing about our Morning Time is that we don’t do it in the morning! This is for two reasons. One is that we reserve mornings at our house for appointments (usually medical stuff/therapies for our kids with extra needs). The second is that we do not (yet) include our youngest two little ones. They have “rest time” in the afternoon while I gather around the table with my 7, 9, 9, & 11-year olds. Some families require their teens to join in, but my oldest two children have not done Morning Time with us in a few years. However, I definitely require them to read lots of rich “affection ordering” books in their curriculums!
The most important part to beginning your Morning Time journey is deciding the “bones” of your time together. What do YOU want your children to hide away in their hearts and minds? Is it learning Latin? Reciting Shakespeare by memory? Singing beautiful hymns that may be missing from your local church services? The options are limitless and YOU get to be the boss in deciding YOUR most important subjects. Choosing your “bones” helps you decide what you’ll do no matter what and then you can add in fun extras along the way. But start small! It’s easy to get overwhelmed if your list is too big in the beginning.
Our Morning time “Bones”
- Prayer (each child is assigned a day of the week to pray aloud)
- Scripture Reading/Scripture Memory/Theology
- Fun Poetry Reading (the children also memorize poetry as a part of their English assignments)
- Memorization (great works of history, planets, continents, presidents, etc.)
- Biography Read-Alouds
- Historical Fiction Read-Alouds
These are the subjects we try to include everyday. But I reevaluate this list at the beginning of every school year to be sure it matches our current season of life. And I have the freedom to add in “extras” along the way, such as seasonal picture books, drawing in our Nature Journals after a fun field-trip to the woods, etc.). Sometimes your children will show an interest in something that fits perfectly into your time together and you may go “off script” for a few weeks to dive in!
I will soon be posting about the books and resources we are currently using for Morning Time in our homeschool, so stay tuned!
passing on a culture of REMEMBRANCE
Is it always easy to fit time around the table into our busy schedules? No. But Morning Time has become a staple in our home because I KNOW how quickly children grow and leave the nest. This time together captures hours of the day and insures the beautiful things happen. It’s taking precious words of the past and making sure they are brought into the future on the wings of my children. In the words of Cindy Rollins, its “passing on a culture of remembrance”.
If you want to learn more about how you can implement Morning Time into your day, check out these resources…
- Morning Time – A Liturgy Of Love by Cindy Rollins
- Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins
- “Your Morning Basket” Podcast #68 – Choosing Books for Your Morning Time
- Better Together by Pam Barnhill
- Simple Morning Time Plans – Read Aloud Revival
And, as always, check out Meet Tanna from Megavan Mama to learn more about our big fun family!
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