This last month I have been planning for our homeschool year, and one of the things that I have blocked onto our little paper schedule is morning time.
Morning time is one of those homeschool things that everyone knows about, and a lot of people do, but everyone's version of it looks different. Morning time is a block of time (in the morning or during another convenient time of the day) that you spend on learning things together. To me, it's a time to add a little color to our homeschool day and make sure my kids are learning things I want them to know that aren't in their schoolbooks. Some people spend a ton of time on morning time, and I love the days when we have the space to do a bunch of "extras" together - reading picture books, doing a music lesson, nature journaling, etc.
But...to be honest, if I did huge, grand plans every morning time, it's one of those things that would probably rarely happen or not happen at all. Some days we get a late start for whatever reason, and we don't have time for an extended morning time (unless I want the kids to be doing work clear until dinner). Sometimes we're having a low energy day, or we're sick, or we have somewhere to be in the afternoon, and if we want to get to our regular lessons we just can't spend much time on morning time.
Even on those days where morning time is hard to fit in, I still think it's worth doing, so I've come up with a "minimalist" version of morning time for our homeschool - something I can run through with the kids in less than 15 minutes. It is so helpful to have a bare bones morning time plan like this, because I don't have any real reason not to do it, even on our busy days. It's a lot easier to be consistent with a 15 minute plan than an hour long plan. And even though it's very short, it's packed full of things I know will stick with my kids and enrich their lives and faith for years to come.
Here's what we do for our minimalist morning time:
1. Some sort of quick Bible reading or devotional. We will spend a few minutes reading a chapter of the Bible and talking about it, or reading one of these books and looking up the scriptures that go with each page.
2. A hymn. I grew up singing hymns in a little mountain church (white steeple and all), and cracking open a hymnal and singing those rich words together was one of the joys of my childhood. The hymns stuck with me, and I still randomly find one running through my head at times. The lyrics still challenge and encourage me. I really want my kids to know some good solid hymns, so we've gotten into the habit of singing one together each morning.
3. Catechism questions. When I was a teenager, the pastor's wife at our church organized a catechism class for all the kids. I will eventually write a post about how impactful that was for me, but to keep it short here, catechism is one of those things that kept me on track and helped me with discernment as I grew older. Catechisms are Q&A versions of core Christian doctrines, and I think memorizing a catechism together is a great way to imprint those truths on our minds so that we will remember them when different situations come up in our lives. That was certainly my experience with the limited questions I memorized in my teens, and I hope memorizing a catechism will be the same kind of guard for my children. We use the Westminster Shorter Catechism (though our family will be using the "baptist version" when we get to the questions on infant baptism, since our family holds to believer's baptism).
4. A Bible memory passage. Memorizing a Bible passage together during morning time has been one of the most effective ways for all of us to work on hiding God's Word in our hearts. I pick a passage I think my kids should know (we mainly do chunks of Scripture, not just single verses), and then we repeat the first verse or two a few times before moving on. After a few days (or weeks, depending on how well it's sticking), we move to repeating the next verse or two, then once or twice we say it all together adding the new verses onto the fuller passage. Eventually we get the whole thing memorized this way.
5. A funny poem. After working on memorizing some serious things, I tack on a funny poem before we close our minimalist morning time. The kids really love laughing about whatever poem we are working on, and I think knowing something light-hearted is coming keeps them focused for our more serious memorization.
After we work through those five things, I pray for us and we all move on with book work! I've been doing our morning time this way for the last 2-3 years, and it's amazing how much even my littler girls have memorized. As I said, this typically takes us less than 15 minutes, but I think the benefits for my kids in memorizing these things are something that will be significant as they grow up.
As I was planning this year and thinking about the hymns and verses I want us to work on, I got the idea that I wanted to create some sort of pretty printable of our core morning time work. I initially thought of creating something just for our new memory work, but then I got a little carried away.
The result is that I created a document with all our previous memory work from the last year or two, plus the new items I want to work on for September - and I wanted to share my morning time printable with all of you! It includes all our previous memory work (6 hymns, 4 Bible passages, 12 catechism questions), plus a new set that we'll be working on as we start the school year. I am hoping to add new memory work every month, and as I create those pages, I'll keep sharing them here on the blog for those of you who are interested. I'm hoping this can be an easy resource for those of you who like to do a similar morning time routine with your kids!
Also please note, since this minimalist approach is pretty quick, it doesn't just have to be for homeschoolers. There have been plenty of times when we've taken our morning time work in the car with us, and with these pages you could grab a few and do them with your kids anytime you are driving to school, extracurricular activities, etc.
Here are the links to download:
These links will only be good for a few months or so, before I make the documents private again. If you are a newsletter subscriber (check the sidebar to sign up) keep an eye out because I'll send out an email with the documents soon too!
Enjoy!
A Quick Note About Bible Versions: Even though I prefer the New King James Version, I became aware recently that many Bible versions are copyrighted, so to be safe I only used versions in the public domain, such as KJV, ASV, and WEB (which is a free-for-public-use version that is similar to the ASV but with less Old English - it looked solid to me). If you can figure out how to edit the PDF to include your favorite Bible version, go for it! My family will be memorizing our Bible passages in the NKJV, but for the document I had to stick with the previously mentioned versions for copyright sake.
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