s/o Morning Time - the Abridged Version

[IsabelC]

I enjoyed the thread on Morning Time, but no way are my kids ever going to behave themselves for 1-2 hours at a time to get through all those activities.

 

So, if you only had 20-30 minutes to do Morning Time, what would you cover? What's most crucial to fit into this prime real estate of daily time?

 

 

[kolamum]

Our morning time takes about 15-20 minutes. It includes:

 

Bible Reading For the day

Memory Box

Devotion

CNN Student News

1 Article from Gods News World

Song

Poetry

 

 

So we generally start with whatever song/hymn we are singing for the month. We move right into our Memory Box which has verses, math facts, & some poems in it, the whole thing takes 5 minutes max, I'd say half that as a norm. We either listen to an Audio Bible for our reading or I read aloud, then we do our devotional. We read 2 pages in our poetry book {we tend to spread one out over a year}, & then we move to the living room so we can watch the news & then I read an article from the magazine. I generally send it from the computer to the TV so the kids can read along.

 

We mark the map for the places we hear about in the news & magazine. That's it. Then kids grab math books & our academics start for the day. Seriously, while I could dream up MORE to do, I know we haven't got the time so we just do it this way. It works for us. :D

 

 

[IsabelC]

What age did you start the kids on the children's news? I like the idea of marking places that come up (although would have to get a map we can mark, as we currently just use a globe for most things). 

 

How do you do memory work in just a few minutes? 

[julie4]

I enjoyed the thread on Morning Time, but no way are my kids ever going to behave themselves for 1-2 hours at a time to get through all those activities.

 

So, if you only had 20-30 minutes to do Morning Time, what would you cover? What's most crucial to fit into this prime real estate of daily time?

If I only had 20-30 minutes I would do read aloud. But you could try a larger block of time with a break/snack when needed. My kids are 9 & 11 and they can't do it without a break, and a little treat helps too.

[IsabelC]

My kids can listen to unlimited read alouds: if we started the day with RA, we'd probably wind up reading most of the day half the time! I generally use our family novel as a bribe to have after they have done whatever they're meant to be doing. Although I guess it would be good to do the less preferred read alouds we'll be starting next year during MT. I think we'll be having another crack at SOTW so that would be good for some days. And definitely our Virtues book. 

 

It's all a bit difficult to visualize at it will be a couple of years since we did MT. In the beginning we used to do little kid stuff like check the date and weather, nursery rhymes with actions etc so it's going to be different now they are all a bit older.

 

Snacks sound like a great idea. My kids never turn down snacks :D

[Desert Strawberry]

If we're limited on time or patience, I do the read alouds later.

[Momof3littles]

Poem, art appreciation, maybe a non preferred read aloud (naturalist essays, Shakespeare if not a preferred RA, short biographies?).  Memory work.

[Tress]

Whatever is most important to you that isn't otherwise getting done. Nwhen I started this kind of thing, years before the current group epiphany ... It was memory work. I started with English and latin grammar/ vocab and added to it from there.

 

:lol: Yeah, I seem to have been doing Morning Time for years, without knowing it was Morning Time. But definitely NOT the 2 hour variant! I mean, with young kids, that would have been their whole day and then I would still need to do Math, Dutch and Foreign Languages with them :huh:.

 

Most of the time we do: Singing, Bible, Saint Story, Prayer, some memory work. 

 

I really like Kolamum's idea of adding some news items. I'm going to try and find something like that in Dutch.

 

 

[IsabelC]

Does anyone do physical exercise / stretch / yoga kind of stuff in MT?

 

 

So far I am thinking something like this:

1. Song - either sing or listen/march/whatever - or maybe just a piece of music they like, or a rhythm game on the percussion instruments - note sure yet

2. Character stuff (we don't do religious devotions but we do have secular resources for this)

3. Memory work - gotta bone up on how to actually tackle this, as we've done very little in the past

4. Maybe alternate between news item and other reading?

 

Could probably fit that into half an hour or not much more, with them eating their snack while I read.

[craftyerin]

I am planning to start something akin to morning time in the fall.  We already have a good habit of reading aloud after lunch and before bed.  I will not be messing with that.  We'll leave read aloud out of it and do bible reading, memory work (poetry and scripture), and probably rotate between picture study, composer study, spanish, and nature study.  That should take no more than 30 min except on the nature study day. 

[Ms.Ivy]

My kids definitely don't sit still the whole hour we do our Morning Time.  I break every 5 to 10 minutes with something physical.  Sometimes they run laps around the front yard, or do jumping jacks, or sing a motion song, etc.  That's in addition to their other periods of exercise during the day.  I chose what to cover during our Morning Time based on what was important to our family that we can do together and wasn't going to get done otherwise.  I'd like to cover other stuff like Shakespeare or composers or art, but I can't do everything, and we always have next year to do something different!

[Above The Rowan]

Does anyone do physical exercise / stretch / yoga kind of stuff in MT?

 

Yes we do.

We are not Christian so we don't do any of the devotional stuff.

We have just started MT so it's a constant work in progress but at the moment we do:

 

- short chat about the plans for the day

- we read from Adventures of Mali and Keela (secular-friendly virtues book in story format)

- we read aloud something for enjoyment

- we read aloud SOTW

- reading for our BYL Darwin unit study and maybe part of the activity

- finish with a mindfulness activity/song from Planting Seeds (kids mindfulness book written by Thich Nhat Hanh) and a few easy yoga stretches

 

Id like to add some memory work but haven't found anything yet. It's on my wish list though lol

[My3girls]

We don't do much more than 15-20 minutes most days.  I read aloud a poem or short story.  Right now, it's Greek Myths, and previously it was Aesop's Fables for the short story.  Then we do handwriting.  On Mondays, we often watch Cosmos that I recorded from the week before, and on Fridays, we change-up our read aloud.  Tomorrow, we are reading Shakespear's 12th Night (children's version) or at least 1/2, and we'll finish it up next week. 

[MusicMama]

Our circle time takes about 20 minutes.

 

We have:

Prayer

Article of Faith

Song

Scripture verse

months/address/phone number/birthday (One of those a day, trying to help my 3yo learn his pertinent info)

Memory work (So far we have memorized the 7 Creative periods, 10 plagues of egpyt, 12 sons of Israel, and will be working on the 10 commandments)

Character trait for the month

 

After circle time they watch either watch an episode of Salsa Spanish or Elementary Spanish while I organize the supplies and books for the day.  Then we begin!

 

[LMD]

we do about 20mins. I call it morning board, though we don't do it first thing in the morning! Board is because i put everything for the month on a pinboard so they can see it anytime. Daily items are calendar, q & a a day book, memory verse, Latin (gswl), and 1 other thing. We do devotions in the morning, i wake the kids with hot chocolate. 1 other things are artist, composer, country, math facts, phonics practice, hymn. We do one a day and rotate through them. I change the subject of each thing each month.

 

Works for us!

[IsabelC]

I really like the idea of rotating, different things on each day, cause there are so many worthwhile things that could be done. 

[kolamum]

What age did you start the kids on the children's news? I like the idea of marking places that come up (although would have to get a map we can mark, as we currently just use a globe for most things). 

 

How do you do memory work in just a few minutes? 

 

My children that watch the news are 10 & 13. We watch the CNN Kids version, if you sign up for emails you'll get a preview of what the news is about prior. We've also watched BTN which is a kids version in Australia, all though we found it heavily slanted with dodgy reports. Then w had issues with them showing ridiculous reports verse something of importance.

 

 

We have an index card box that is bursting at the seems. That adds up to the few minutes each day we've put into it in the past few years. We work on a new verse each day, & review a half dozen others. Are you familiar with the memory box system? It's a free thing you set up yourself, we've had ours for several years & have continued to add to is as we go. It's where our flash cards are stored so they aren't skipped. It's where poems are added, one stanza at a time, new phone numbers, addresses, etc. It all lands in there at some point or another & by the end of the year they've memorised more then a dozen new verses & other bits of information that they need.

 

For us we have a Daily Tab which holds the verse we are currently memorising {generally stays there for 1-2 weeks. My eldest struggles with memorisation for some things so we generally hold on until he's calm & ready}

We do an Even or Uneven tab {not both, one or there other} which is where our previously memorised verse lands.

We do a Mon, Tues, Wed, Thur, OR Fri tab. {only one} & those hold verses that have moved out of the Even Uneven section, all though we have an entire chapter in Mark in one of the slots because they are practicing for a shadow puppet show they want to record for Christmas.

We then do 1 more tab which is dated for the calendar number. So if it's the 15th we'd be doing the tab labeled 15th. {FWIW, I don't have 31 tabs marking calendar dates in my box I have 1/15, 2/16, 3/17, etc. That means we revisit each tab 2x each month, all though if a date falls on a weekend we don't always reach it..}

 

That's it. So while it's only taking us 5 minutes max, we're covering more then it would seem. :D

[FromA2Z]

My dc are 6 and 4. These are my plans:

 

Tuesday: Safety day. -

Rotate topics such as personal safety, fire safety, water safety, gun safety, bike safety. We will memorize address, phone #'s, what to do in an emergency, get lost, etc. I plan to use worksheets/ coloring pages, songs and activities/role play. Then rinse and repeat topics.

 

Wednesday: Patriotic Day:

Learn patriotic songs (wee sing America). Memorize Pledge, states, Preamble, various snippets of famous speeches.

 

Thursday: Hymn Study

Learn various hymns and background.

 

Friday: Character Day-

Activities/stories for our character trait of the month.

 

We do Bible during breakfast, poetry/folk stories (My Book House) during lunch, and picture book & chapter book RA at bed time. History/lit and science reading take place during school.

 

Saturday we will do picture, composer, and nature study as our whole school day.

[clarkacademy]

Do any of you guys have morning boards that you created? I would love to see some for older kids

[Momof3littles]

we do about 20mins. I call it morning board, though we don't do it first thing in the morning! Board is because i put everything for the month on a pinboard so they can see it anytime. Daily items are calendar, q & a a day book, memory verse, Latin (gswl), and 1 other thing. We do devotions in the morning, i wake the kids with hot chocolate. 1 other things are artist, composer, country, math facts, phonics practice, hymn. We do one a day and rotate through them. I change the subject of each thing each month.

 

Works for us!

 

Do you use a trifold board or something else?  I've toyed with doing this a few times.  I'm curious what you have found effective.  We just started gswl, and this would be nice for review for that too. 

[IsabelC]

My children that watch the news are 10 & 13. We watch the CNN Kids version, if you sign up for emails you'll get a preview of what the news is about prior. We've also watched BTN which is a kids version in Australia, all though we found it heavily slanted with dodgy reports. Then w had issues with them showing ridiculous reports verse something of importance.

 

 

 

Yes, I had the same issue with BTN when I watched it to check whether it might be suitable. (I have memories of watching it at school many years ago, and I'm almost sure it was better back then?).

I will have a look at CNN Kids.

 

And thanks for explaining the memory work system. As I said, we haven't got into it in a big way before, but I'm looking up various ideas at the moment.

[IsabelC]

My dc are 6 and 4. These are my plans:

 

Tuesday: Safety day. -

Rotate topics such as personal safety, fire safety, water safety, gun safety, bike safety. We will memorize address, phone #'s, what to do in an emergency, get lost, etc. I plan to use worksheets/ coloring pages, songs and activities/role play. Then rinse and repeat topics.

 

Wednesday: Patriotic Day:

Learn patriotic songs (wee sing America). Memorize Pledge, states, Preamble, various snippets of famous speeches.

 

Thursday: Hymn Study

Learn various hymns and background.

 

Friday: Character Day-

Activities/stories for our character trait of the month.

 

We do Bible during breakfast, poetry/folk stories (My Book House) during lunch, and picture book & chapter book RA at bed time. History/lit and science reading take place during school.

 

Saturday we will do picture, composer, and nature study as our whole school day.

 

I really like your rotations!

 

Although we Aussies are fairly bad at the whole patriotism thing, not least because we don't have all those inspiring speeches and and documents to learn, and our National Anthem is frankly crap compared to yours. We might have to resort to Waltzing Matilda and Dorothea MacKellar. 

[IsabelC]

 i wake the kids with hot chocolate. 

 

Can you be my mum? 

[fourisenough]

My kids listen to 30 minutes of our audio book while I'm clearing up breakfast, making beds, and starting a load of laundry. I then join them at table and we do about 30 minutes of MT, including:

 

1) picture study

2) music appreciation

3) poetry study

4) famous speech

5) (9 year old) CNN Student News

5) (5 year old) calendar, weather, address/phone, etc.

 

This year we'll use MP K Enrichment as our source for items 1-3 above. Additionally, 9-year old will do Mensa for Kids "A Year of Living Poetically" for item 3 and Time's Top 10 Greatest Speeches for item 4 (both free online). She'll use some of the poems & speeches as her CC presentations once memorized.

[reign]

We do a morning time right before breakfast. We stretch and then do sit-ups, push ups, head stands, and work on hand stands. The girls are in gymnastics and karate so that's what we work on. Then we do memory work. I have a poem we are working on and a review poem daily. Mondays we do geography. Wednesdays we do presidents. Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday we do our current science memory. On Saturdays we just review our past science memories. About every other day we watch a signing time with breakfast. The other days we listen to Latin or science songs.

[LMD]

Do you use a trifold board or something else? I've toyed with doing this a few times. I'm curious what you have found effective. We just started gswl, and this would be nice for review for that too.

i literally use a big pinboard that i happened to have lying around! I put our hymn, pics from our artist, current memory vs, map of country all pinned. I actually have a mini whiteboard i keep next to it that we use for Latin. There is a pic of the board on my blog in my Sig, can't link on my phone!

[LMD]

Can you be my mum?

:D i stole the idea from my friend. It helps keep me accountable because the kids really notice if we miss it! Lol.