A Morning Time Snapshot - Fall 2018


Morning Time is the heart and soul of our homeschool rhythm. On any given day, we may skip science, history, or even math, but we prioritize morning time. We don't have a set start time, but gathering together in the school room to nourish our hearts, minds and souls helps us transition from morning chores into our focused learning time. Even if we don't manage to complete anything else, on days when we do morning time I can feel confident that we've done the most important things.

The details of our Morning Time vary a little from day to day and season to season, but here's a glimpse at what we did today.

Prayer: We are reciting the Lord's Prayer together, using the motions taught by Aaron Niequist and his Practice community. In the past, we've also used this Morning Prayer by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Hymn: Right now we are learning Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us. We stay with each hymn for about a month before switching to a new one. Once a month or so we revisit a hymn we've learned previously to keep it fresh.

Bible Reading: Today we read the story of Abram & Lot from Genesis 13.

Scripture Memory: We are practicing Matthew 5:1-2 as we work on memorizing the Sermon on the Mount together.

Grammar: We are doing grammar lessons orally using First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind as our guide. We are slowly working our way through Level One which works perfectly for teaching my second grader and kindergartener together. Today's lesson involved reviewing the definition of a noun, a pronoun, and a verb. Then we created simple sentences involving animals and their actions such as 'The dog barks' and labeled the noun and verb in each sentence.

Hands-On Math Activity: I typically include the hands-on portion of our Saxon Math lesson here. This includes the Saxon morning meeting composed of writing the day's date, graphing the temperature, doing a short exercise around telling time or counting money, and some practice with counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, or 10s, as well as a lesson unique to that day. Today's lesson involved using pattern blocks to compare the size of different shaped pieces. I take this material from the Saxon 2 curriculum. My kindergartener picks up what she can, and my son extends his learning with a written worksheet later in the day.

Picture Books: We wind down our Morning Time with a few picture books. This is our dessert at the end of the feast! Today we read Mirette On the High Wire by Emily Arnold McCully, Possum's Harvest Moon by Anne Hunter, and Clifford's First Autumn by Norman Bridwell.

Is Morning Time a part of your homeschool? What are your favorite Morning Time resources? Please let us know in the comments. We would love to hear from you!


Comments

  1. what a nice morning time you have. :)

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for your kind words, Annette! There's usually a fair amount of whining, wrestling, and jumping on the couch that is not represented in this post, but that's to be expected, right? :)

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