Could you please share your morning together time?

[kidsnbooks8]

I am trying to combine as much as I can this year. It would be so helpful if you could share your morning together time.(ie... circle time, table time... or whatever it may be called at your house!) I am hoping to have a few things for my 11yo, but for the most part it will be for Pre-K - 3.

 

So far, I know we will have a time of prayer, a hymn, memory verse, pledge, the rest I am not sure what we will be doing. But I did find a really neat display board(on a blog), that looks like something the kids would really enjoy with the time, calandar, weather, state, and so on.

 

Thanks!

[Aletheia Academy]

In the morning, we will be working together on Theology, Memorization tasks, Greek or Latin, and ETC and SWR phonograms. Then we will have a brief break before individual RRR instruction. After lunch we will have some more time together with history.

 

I really wanted to do all of our together time at one, but I found last year that my dc needed a break, and I didn't want to do the RRR work in the afternoons.

 

You can see my schedule on my blog. Click on Scheduling in the topical index on the right and you may have to scroll down a bit.

[Jami]

You might enjoy the ideas from this blog. The author uses Ambleside for her Morning Times.

 

http://morningtimemoms.blogspot.com/

Edited August 12, 2009 by Jami

[PeterPan]

Now see to me, I wouldn't do those things as together time. My dd had outgrown the daily singing of the days of the week, etc. by the time she was 6, and she liked to do the calendar herself. I'd probably take things like that and put them on a rotating list as their seatwork. (Monday Johnny does it, Tuesday Suzy, etc.)

 

We sing and then have table time where baby sits in his booster seat. Together time and table time merge when you have only one. We do our OT survey, some read alouds, the math lesson, Mindbender logic puzzle, and Math Olympiad problem of the day in that hour. In your shoes, I'd use that time to do the letter of the day, math games, and phonics games where you could easily combine 6, 4, and 2. After everyone has done their math lessons or first hour of work and need a break, then memory work together with singing and the reward of read alouds. We like to be up and moving and being silly while we sing our memory songs, so it's a good change of pace after sitting. BTW, you could also do a FIAR book in that together time with your 6 and unders. I wouldn't include the 8 yo in that, because he has math to do, sorry. :)

[bbsweetpea]

My kids are younger but we go over our calendar, the day of the week, the month, weather etc. We sing our days of the week song, month song and then some memory songs for math or other subjects. When they were younger we played color and shape games during this time as well.

 

We read two stories- one is the FIAR book for the month and the other is a story relating to a subject we will go over that day. Like today we read a book on "Cells" since we were talking about the "cells" in our body. The kids then drew pictures of skin cells and posted them on their bullitan board. All of this takes about 30 minutes.

 

After this they split up into their own work.

 

We join together for History, Science, Music, Art and Math (we rotate these though).

[prairiegirl]

I have been trying to figure out how to revamp our morning time. I am famous for adding way too much to our MT and then give it up because I am burnt out.

 

My kids are older so we don't do calendar, weather, etc. We start our morning off with Bible, latin and memory work (be it scripture or poetry) every day. Then each day will be for one of the following: poetry, picture study, Shakespeare, and greek mythology. I am hoping I can make this fly this year. I love MT. It grounds our learning time.

[gratefulmother]

I like this question! I would often like to be a fly on the wall in someone else's home to see how their school days work.

 

We do felt Bible story, memory verse, catechism and poem to memorize during our together time in the morning. Then they work separately with me taking turns with each. At the end of the morning we do read-alouds, but I am thinking of changing that. We might add in a snack break with read-alound midway through the morning.

[Mary in GA]

Well, I can't combine much dd's are 12 and 6, but we always begin the day with our read aloud over coffee and breakfast.

 

Mary

[christielee7278]

We do all that you stated and then my oldest can shoot off to his room to start his independent work. The littles and I do the calendar thing with days of the week song, 100's chart, weather, and such.

 

I have told my oldest that he can hang around if he wants because I don't want him to feel excluded during a fun together time, and sometimes he does sit on next to us and do his copywork. He did today and I noticed his head bopping a little to our days of the week song. :lol:

 

I try to make it fun and they do look forward to it. They are very encouraging to each other about memory verse work, and we have a good time.

[Jane]

So far, I know we will have a time of prayer, a hymn, memory verse, pledge, the rest I am not sure what we will be doing. But I did find a really neat display board(on a blog), that looks like something the kids would really enjoy with the time, calandar, weather, state, and so on.

 

Okay, I love a good brainstorming session. Here are some ideas, you'll notice I'm very living books oriented.

 

I like to add in children's books about calendars, seasons, weather, etc. Just read a page or two at the start of each month/season to go along with your calendar lessons.

 

I like your idea of including geography through a study of the states. There is a great new series that goes through the states. (Discover America State by State series)

 

If you're really trying to keep them all together as much as possible, you might even include science during this time. You probably have your own favorite science curriculum, but I could envision a table science time starting with living books. I would read from a picture book (Magic School Bus or One Small Square or Let's Read and Find Out series), then have some items on hand for exploring the concepts. If I were smart, I would even have bins set up for each week with the books on the topic I want to cover and all the items I need for hands-on exploration. With some of the studies, a book w/an attached ziplock bag of materials might be all that is required. Hmmm. This is probably what I need to do because this is how I handle science in K-2nd. I just don't consider it part of our "circle time" because our circle time is geared more towards our toddlers.

 

You could include a vocabulary word on your display board for your older children and a letter of the week or word family or sight word for the younger ones. All these words can later be moved to a different wall.

 

Our official "circle time" right now has a lot of wiggle time. We are teaching our toddlers some typical nursery rhymes, games, and songs. I don't know if you would want to include this or not. My K-2nd graders enjoy it, but mostly because it's a riot to watch the toddlers join in. :D

 

Let me know if these ideas get your mind spinning in other directions, because I'm all :bigear:.

[helena]

We used to recite the songs from this book http://www.amazon.com/Finger-Nursery-Kindergarten-Emilie-Poulsson/dp/0486225887. Last year we would meet at the classroom table, then go outside to see what had changed in the garden.

[kidsnbooks8]

Thank so much ladies, these are great ideas!There is something in each post I would like to add! ( At this rate, circle time is going to last until bedtime! I always try to fit in too much:lol:)I am going to print these out and see what I can come up with. I will be back when I have had some time to really think things through(I am so slow sometimes:001_huh:) and let you know what I come up with and hopefully even have pictures of our board. We will be starting school on Sept. 1st so it will be before that.

 

 

Originally posted by helena

Last year we would meet at the classroom table, then go outside to see what had changed in the garden.

 

This is great! Nature Study, who doesn't love nature study!! The kids would love this idea.

Originally posted by Jane

I could envision a table science time starting with living books. I would read from a picture book (Magic School Bus or One Small Square or Let's Read and Find Out series), then have some items on hand for exploring the concepts. If I were smart, I would even have bins set up for each week with the books on the topic I want to cover and all the items I need for hands-on exploration. With some of the studies, a book w/an attached ziplock bag of materials might be all that is required. Hmmm. This is probably what I need to do because this is how I handle science in K-2nd. I just don't consider it part of our "circle time" because our circle time is geared more towards our toddlers.

 

You could include a vocabulary word on your display board for your older children and a letter of the week or word family or sight word for the younger ones. All these words can later be moved to a different wall.

 

 

 

Jane these are great ideas. I could use some of them to keep my little guys busy while I worked with my girls too.We could go over the science together and then my little guys could play with the hands on things or color a picture that goes along with this, or even a video(MSB or Zaboomafoo...)

 

And I love the vocabulary word, sight word idea too. This is great!

 

 

 

Originally posted by christielee

We do all that you stated and then my oldest can shoot off to his room to start his independent work. The littles and I do the calendar thing with days of the week song, 100's chart, weather, and such.

 

I have told my oldest that he can hang around if he wants because I don't want him to feel excluded during a fun together time, and sometimes he does sit on next to us and do his copywork. He did today and I noticed his head bopping a little to our days of the week song. :lol:

 

I try to make it fun and they do look forward to it. They are very encouraging to each other about memory verse work, and we have a good time.

 

You have a similar situation with an older and a few younger. It sounds like you are doing well combining the two, I hope we can make it work too.:)

 

 

Originally posted by Mary

we always begin the day with our read aloud over coffee and breakfast

 

This sounds so peaceful and relaxing.

 

 

 

Originally posted by gratefulmother

I like this question! I would often like to be a fly on the wall in someone else's home to see how their school days work.

 

We do felt Bible story, memory verse, catechism and poem to memorize during our together time in the morning. Then they work separately with me taking turns with each. At the end of the morning we do read-alouds, but I am thinking of changing that. We might add in a snack break with read-alound midway through the morning.

 

I too would like to be a fly on the wall in peoples home to see how they make homeschooling work. I think snack and read aloud sound great as a recharge.:D

 

Originally posted by prairiegirl

I have been trying to figure out how to revamp our morning time. I am famous for adding way too much to our MT and then give it up because I am burnt out.

 

My kids are older so we don't do calendar, weather, etc. We start our morning off with Bible, latin and memory work (be it scripture or poetry) every day. Then each day will be for one of the following: poetry, picture study, Shakespeare, and greek mythology. I am hoping I can make this fly this year. I love MT. It grounds our learning time.

 

 

I too am famous for adding too much, then burnout!;) I like the idea of a different thing each day..."poetry, picture study, Shakespeare..."

 

 

 

Originally posted by bbsweetpea

My kids are younger but we go over our calendar, the day of the week, the month, weather etc. We sing our days of the week song, month song and then some memory songs for math or other subjects. When they were younger we played color and shape games during this time as well.

 

We read two stories- one is the FIAR book for the month and the other is a story relating to a subject we will go over that day. Like today we read a book on "Cells" since we were talking about the "cells" in our body. The kids then drew pictures of skin cells and posted them on their bullitan board. All of this takes about 30 minutes.

 

After this they split up into their own work.

 

We join together for History, Science, Music, Art and Math (we rotate these though).

 

 

This sounds great, you have a great system going. I really like to sound of how you work the science in there, mine would love this!

 

 

Originally posted by OhElizabeth

In your shoes, I'd use that time to do the letter of the day, math games, and phonics games where you could easily combine 6, 4, and 2. After everyone has done their math lessons or first hour of work and need a break, then memory work together with singing and the reward of read alouds. We like to be up and moving and being silly while we sing our memory songs, so it's a good change of pace after sitting. BTW, you could also do a FIAR book in that together time with your 6 and unders. I wouldn't include the 8 yo in that, because he has math to do, sorry. :)

 

 

This sounds great, I want it to be fun as well as educational. I tend to have a habit of making everything seem like work:tongue_smilie:

 

Originally posted by Jami

You might enjoy the ideas from this blog. The author uses Ambleside for her Morning Times.

 

 

 

Thank you for the link, it was helpful.

 

 

Originally posted by Aletheia Academy

In the morning, we will be working together on Theology, Memorization tasks, Greek or Latin, and ETC and SWR phonograms. Then we will have a brief break before individual RRR instruction. After lunch we will have some more time together with history.

 

I really wanted to do all of our together time at one, but I found last year that my dc needed a break, and I didn't want to do the RRR work in the afternoons.

 

You can see my schedule on my blog. Click on Scheduling in the topical index on the right and you may have to scroll down a bit.

 

 

I have been thinking about doing the Phonograms and English from the Roots Up during this time. I figured it would be helpful to all except my 2yo. And thank you for the blog link, I enjoyed it.

[JoyfulMama_Karen]

These are great ideas; thank you!

[babysparkler]

We do felt Bible story

 

What felt system do you use?

[Laura W.]

Here's what we do:

 

Prayer

Bible (Betty Lukens, which appeals to youngers plus a devotional geared more toward the olders)

Practice Bible verse from devotional

History (SOTW according to Biblioplan schedule, plus BP read-alouds and/or K-2 readers)

 

At this point, my oldest (6th) begins independent work. The other four finish out our together time by doing FIAR and handwriting.

 

Blessings,

 

Laura

[Amber in AUS]

We are not doing this at our place ATM but when we were our circle time included -

 

a song

a poem

looking at our picture study picture

memory work

a short story

observing the weather, discussing our observations with the forecast

 

We spent about 30min on the floor in the lounge doing all of these items. Their level of engagement/challenge was age appropriate ofcourse.

[momco3]

We do our memory verses, a hymn, read scripture together, and then the kids do their notebook work. Then we come together again for our read alouds (history, poetry, literature.)

[woolybear]

Well, my boys are 6 (almost 7) and 9. I'm thinking I will try something a little different this year. Last year I started with a read aloud for both. Then, they each went on to individual work (using the workbox system). However, I found if I schedule phonics, say, or math at the same time they both have questions and it feels a bit manic bouncing back and forth between them. When I tried to schedule something to keep one busy independently while I worked with the other, it either felt like busy work, was distracting or it didn't last long enough.

 

This year I am planning to schedule a block of time alone with each of them. Reading this post is making me think that perhaps I should still start with some joint activity (a story, weather observation,????)

Then my thought is to work one on one with younger ds. I am thinking about half an hour. This may include phonics,math, handwriting, depending on which subject is covering new material that day. Perhaps I will also do a read aloud geared just to that child.

 

While I am working with one, the other will be expected to go to one of the set up centers (story corner, art, science, a unit study). Then we will switch.

 

After this time, we will work together on the rest of the subjects. Depending on the day, it will be history, science, art, picture study, nature study, world cultures, lots and lots of read alouds.

 

Perhaps I've gone off a bit from what was asked. I don't do circle time per se, but this is how I'm thinking of scheduling things. I like hearing everyone's ideas. It's giving me more to think about.

 

Woolybear

[2cents]

Mine are in middle school and for our morning together time we have breakfast while watching a subject related Unitedstreaming video. Then we have aloud reading time. We're reading Tiner's History of Medicine and Sophie's World (a novel history of philosophy). We do science and computer programming together too. After that, they do their other subjects on their own.