Morning Time with Littles

Have you ever taken one of those “which homeschooling style are you?” quizzes? Every time I have, I always wind up as “Charlotte Mason style.” Which is great, in theory. I DO love a lot of Charlotte Mason principles. But in practice, I found a lot of the ways Charlotte Mason style is done in 2022 just isn’t my cup of tea. That is, until I found out about morning time!

The one thing I absolutely LOVE that Charlotte Mason advocated for was providing a “feast of ideas” for our children. She said “We spread an abundant and delicate feast… and each small guest assimilates what he can.” This basically means we should expose our children to beautiful ideas as part of their schooling. In a lot of homeschools this includes things like artists, composers, handicrafts, and nature study.

We call our time together “Morning Gathering” and use it to explore some of these subjects. Many homeschooling families use a similar method, and it’s commonly known as “morning time” or “morning basket”.

Our Morning Gathering

Getting anything done in homeschool with a very animated and active two-year-old is a challenge, but trying to quietly sit and reflect on beautiful things is almost impossible. Because of this, we use a VERY simple morning time schedule, and on a good day, everyone sits for around 5-10 minutes and participates.

We do our Morning Gathering during and right after breakfast. During breakfast, we say the Bible verse we are memorizing together, and we do something related to our Bible story for the week. I’ll share some more about what we do for Bible time next week.

After breakfast, we gather in the homeschool room. Each day, we focus on a different “extra”.

Mondays- Artist Study

We study three artists a year. At the beginning of the term, we learn about the new artist by reading a picture book about him or her. Then, we simply observe a new painting (or piece of artwork) by the artist every other Monday. I display the painting in the homeschool room, and we discuss the things we like about it the next Monday after it was posted. During the term, we will watch the episodes of Little Einsteins on Disney+ that feature that artists’ work, if they are available. At the end of the term, we will be creating artwork in the style of the artist.

Tuesdays-Composer Study

Tuesdays are typically our field trip day, so I chose this day for composer study because we can listen to the composer’s music in the car en route to our adventure. We will study three composers each year. At the beginning of the term, we read a picture book or watch a youtube video about the composer. Then, each week, we listen to a different piece of his music. I also try to play some of the music at other times throughout the term. Many composers are also featured on episodes of Little Einsteins.

We love our Amazon music subscription because we can choose whatever we want to listen to and have no ads or weird suggestions popping up.

Wednesdays-Grammar

While grammar is not one of the typical “beautiful things” that people often study, this was the perfect place for us to fit in a brief grammar lesson. I’ll share more about how this time works next week.

Fridays-Geography

Each term we also are focusing on one continent. We started with Europe this year since we were doing a unit on castles. Each week, we locate a new country on the map and read a picture book or section of Children Just Like Me. We also enjoy several shows that often have episodes that align with specific countries. Some of these are Carmen San Diego (Netflix), Where’s Waldo (Peacock), Let’s Go Luna (Prime Video PBS Kids) and Postcards from Buster (Prime Video PBS Kids). They will often watch one of these in the afternoon while I prepare dinner.

Morning Time Odds & Ends

At some point during this time, we also get up and do an active song together to get everyone’s wiggles out. Here are some of our favorites on Spotify.

I alternate back and forth doing our chapter book family read aloud during this time. Sometimes we do it at night time, and sometimes we skip it altogether. It can be really difficult to keep our toddler from destroying something, or climbing me, while we are trying to listen to a chapter. One strategy that works pretty well is putting a Yoto player book on for them while they’re eating dinner, but these don’t always align with what we’re studying.

I really enjoyed the book Better Together by Pam Barnhill to get an idea of the best ways to use morning time in our homeschool. Check it out if you’re interested in implementing a similar rhythm in your family’s day!

After our Morning Gathering, we are all together and can easily transition right into the “meat” of our day…our unit study on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, or heading out for our field trips on Tuesdays. Morning Gathering gives us an anchor to our days and helps us start our mornings gently and with calming subjects. I absolutely love how adding it into our morning positively changed our days!