s/o Morning Meeting Time with a large age gap

[AimeeM]

Is it possible to meet the needs of various ages, with large gaps, and still successfully implement Morning Meeting Time?

 

I'm so jealous of your lovely morning time posts! In reality, though, I can't figure out a way to make it work. DD13 is obviously doing far different memory work than her 5 year old brother... and even their religion is different because of sacrament prep, etc; DD13 isn't going to be interested in reading aloud Strega Nona, and the 5 year old isn't going to get anything from The Giver.

 

I know it can't work, so just regard this as a wistful vent :)

[TammyS]

I'm right there with you.  Mine are 3 and 15.  Can't really seem to figure out a way to make it work, either. 

 

What I *have* made work is a more general culture of the household.  I play music for everyone, listen to audiobooks with everyone, read things to the little one in everyone's hearing, etc.  It's not formal and there is no agenda. But it gets spread around.

[Gentlemommy]

Our age gap isn't quite so large, but this is what has been working here.

Big dd sits on the floor in the living room and starts her spelling workbook on the coffee table, while I read a picture book of dd3's choosing to her, and listen to dd2 read aloud to us from her little reader. I might play soft music from my phone.

We all listen to the poem of the week, and everyone works on memorizing what they can. Dd1 can usually do the entire poem, dd2 can usually do most with some prompting, and dd3 might just remember the title and author.

I have the CC app on my iPad, and we do a round of skip counting to songs with everyone.

Then dd1 and dd2 play the LOE app on the iPad while I read a chapter to dd3.

 

It's only 15-20 min, because any longer and things get out of hand, but we are working on it.

[Ripley]

I have an age gap. I don't know what you want out of morning meeting, so I don't know if this is helpful but here's what we do:

 

rosary - taking turns leading a decade (everyone is either learning or reviewing the prayers in one or another language),

saint of the day - someone reads it aloud. if I've planned ahead, my youngest has a coloring page to accompany it,

Catholic Mosaic + coloring book, when applicable - oldest reads (this is my tidy-the-kitchen time),

and our general plan for the day is covered (school work, chores, extra activities, anticipated meals/snacks).

 

We're not very civilized, though, so we do all of that while eating breakfast. Except for the rosary which we did before breakfast; we're not complete barbarians!

 

 

[coffeegal]

We're going to attempt it with preschoolers through 12th grade this next year. My plan is to have play dough and art supplies available, and do any reading over lunch. All the children sit better when their hands are busy. ;)

[AimeeM]

I have an age gap. I don't know what you want out of morning meeting, so I don't know if this is helpful but here's what we do:

 

rosary - taking turns leading a decade (everyone is either learning or reviewing the prayers in one or another language),

saint of the day - someone reads it aloud. if I've planned ahead, my youngest has a coloring page to accompany it,

Catholic Mosaic + coloring book, when applicable - oldest reads (this is my tidy-the-kitchen time),

and our general plan for the day is covered (school work, chores, extra activities, anticipated meals/snacks).

 

We're not very civilized, though, so we do all of that while eating breakfast. Except for the rosary which we did before breakfast; we're not complete barbarians!

 

That actually sounds pretty typical to want I want out of the meeting.

I, too, am doing Catholic Mosaic. I did get the coloring book for DD13, because she loves such things (DS5 hates coloring), and I think she can get a bit out of the books, too, since she's our "reluctant Catholic".

Prayer and rosary I definitely think we can do. I was hoping to knock out memory work, too, and literature/read aloud, but I think that's just isn't realistic given the gap.

You have given me hope, at least, that I can have a short morning circle - because, minus the memory work and literature I *wanted* to do, what you do during morning time is exactly what I had planned to do. Thank you.

[momee]

You know how SWB did the Day in the Life thing a long time ago?

 

I  just couldn't resist sharing the email I sent to DH this very morning...

"so the plan of waking the girls at 745 gently then again at 815 and allowing them to remain covered with blankets didn't go perfectly but they moved out of the bed before 10 at least

 

however, even after, "now lets sit up a bit, now open your eyes"

they still couldn't answer when I said, now which is Calvin and which is Hobbes?

 

Cue soft flowy music, lol.  I read poetry (only one), a nature study journal biography (two paragraphs long), and two pages (short pages even) of the Logic and detecting fallacies book.  Got to the end, asked my question, and they sort of snored/snortled, and asked "Are you talking to me?"  I continued on to read my book on being a polite young lady character study trying not to be snippy and preachy.

 

Welcome to homeschooling 2014 I guess."

 

I will be disciplining them for this, we will have conversation about what is expected and Mom is in authority here type conversations but I thought you all would get a kick out of this real mom's attempt at Cindy Rollins type morning time.  ;)

 

On a brighter note, the youngest whom I thought was not able to grasp most of it was indeed listening intently and did get the lessons I taught.  All of them given the conversation she had with Daddy after dinner.  Oh happy day.  One day down, 179 more to go :)

[danybug]

We have our morning meeting and I have a large gap. My 13 yo, 7yo and 4yo all participate. For today we just had a prayer, prayer requests, we memorized our morning time motto, started memorizing a prayer, a devotional reading, one Proverb a day with discussion and then a few stories out of Daulaires Norse myths. As we finish up each thing I have more things planned to add.

 

Obviously some was over my 4yo head for sure and my oldest was a whiz at memorizing, but everyone participated happily together. I think it is also a great opportunity for my oldest to be there active with his siblings potentially being helpful and patient. I plan on utilizing my oldest to research and share some things with us all on some days like presidential facts.

 

We do a read aloud all together every day already, so I guess this time doesn't seem that foreign to them. And when dad came home today and we talked about morning time they a equally had things to share, which made me happy :)