School Is Just Around the Corner

Up here in the Northwest we don't start school till September and we typically school until June. That was difficult for me after growing up in the South. Every year I would complain to my friends in May that I was ready to be finished schooling for the summer since that was what I had grown up experiencing. I have adapted now and I love starting school in September! So we are in our last days of Summer and I am mentally consumed with preparing for a new school year. I have done a few things to physically prepare but most my time so far has been spent reading and thinking about what I want this school year to look like.

You see my heart desires to have a Restful, Lovely, Relaxing school year. I have visions of just being with my kiddos piled up on the floor reading, reading, reading. That is actually what I wanted last year but with the addition of Baby #12 I found myself just sliding back in to my usual ways of listing out on the white board what the kids needed to accomplish each day and fuss at them from the kitchen to stick to their work. It was the exact opposite of what I wanted for our year.

But God in His graciousness allows us to start again fresh, letting go of regrets and refocusing on a new year! One of the things that God has brought to my attention this year is the concept of "Morning Time". Type it in on Pinterest and you will find lots of information about it but basically it is a time to gather everyone together(morning or not) and learn together. Most things that you will read about Morning Time talk about using that together time to focus on Truth, Beauty and Goodness. I just LOVE that. Sometimes I feel like I am just throwing information at my kids without really providing any time for discussion or relating it to anything. There are things I have wanted to do with them that just don't seem to fit in the busyness of the day, like Nature Study, Scripture Memory, Poetry, Character Study, Hymn Study and Art.  History always ended up being hit or miss with my littles so having a time for that and Read Alouds was important to me as well.

I purchased the book "Your Morning Time" by Pam Barnhill. I am working on reading it through for the second time. In the book she walks you through the "Why" of Morning Time, shows you how you can plan your Morning Time and gives some suggestions for resources you can use, although you are free to include whatever you choose.

I am one who likes to use my own things so I scoured my bookshelves to find things I have wanted to read with my children and added them to a shelf to remind me that I want to incorporate them at some point. They were things like Nature Readers that I have collected through the years, some animal books from Usborne and a History audio that I downloaded from Character Concepts. I also purchased a set of Art cards from Usborne books to use as a very light Art study. There are lots of things you can do for Hymn study and Character Study so it is just a matter of choosing what you like.

 

One idea that is mentioned in the book that could be used for anyone, whether you do "Morning Time" or not is the idea of a Loop Schedule. Basically choosing the things that need to be done everyday which for us is Bible, Math, Copywork, and a Read aloud. Then for our Loop Schedule we will do Hymn study and History one day, Nature Study and Poetry the next day. Followed by Character Study and Oral Grammar, then Picture Study and Oral Math the final two days. We will only school 4 days a week and have a fun Co-op day with other families on the 5th day. What I love about this Loop schedule is that instead of assigning days to certain subjects then having our schedule railroaded by doctor appointments or getting the opportunity to go somewhere fun with Daddy, we can just pick up where we left off in the schedule despite what day of the week it is. I am also planning to keep a map in my Morning Time basket to pull out when we get the opportunity to locate somewhere from our reading.

My hope is that by doing a couple of special things each day we can just rest and enjoy our time together in the morning before heading to the table to do our everyday subjects.

I hope that you too may be encouraged to look into using a Morning Time with your children and enjoying searching out things to enjoy together that will inspire Truth, Goodness and Beauty.

I want to give credit to Joy at Artful Homemaking for originally introducing this topic to me. Her post is written so much better than I can explain so be sure to hop on over there and give it a read.