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How do you start your day?
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How do you get your mornings started? We are desperately needing a morning routine overhaul…
Do you make your kids get up at a certain time, the same time every day? Is breakfast always the very first thing?
My children get up on their own around 7-7:30, come downstairs dressed, having also made their bed first, and eat breakfast. After breakfast, they brush their teeth and care for our animals (chickens and cat). We call it our ‘morning routine’. They then have free time until 8:30-9:00 to read (or listen to a chapter or two of our current read-aloud), play, or get some fresh air before school begins at 9:00.
My kids get up whenever, but usually they are away around 7. Morning routine is chores and breakfast, and then we start our family readings at 9:00,
My 12YO usually does his Math (Teaching Textbooks) between 8:30 and 9:00 because he finds it’s best to do it first thing in the morning while he is still fresh.
I wake our girls around 8 am. They are supposed to tidy their rooms, put away their laundry, brush and be downstairs around 8:30. I generally have breakfast on the table between 8:30 and 9. After breakfast, we do morning chores (dishes, laundry, sweep kitchen floor, tidy living room) while listening to our composer. Then we start on school. So that’s starting school anywhere from 9:30 (on a fantastic morning) to 10:30 (on a bad morning, or a morning where Daddy interrupts us
).We are struggling with this. We have had a routine for a few years, so the kids know what they are supposed to do, but they get so distracted and don’t get moving and I just end up nagging. We actually had a discussion about it the other day, and today my daughter proposed that each child earns 50 cents for each day that they finish their routine before school starts, with NO reminders. I’ve been meaning to set them up on a commission system a la Dave Ramsey, so I agreed. We’ll see how that goes.
Here is what is supposed to happen:
Wake up (between 7 and 8), make bed, dress, tidy room (basically put jammies and bedtime books away.)
Eat, clear dishes, brush teeth and hair.
Kitchen chore (they rotate between dishwasher, clear/wash table & feed cats, and sweeping)
Laundry chore (rotate between 1. starting a new load, 2. starting dryer and bringing up a clean load, and 3. sorting a clean load for each individual to fold and put away.)
Weekly job (vacuum 2 rooms, change own sheets, wipe kitchen cupboards, etc.)
In theory, they should be done by 9:30 before we start school with our ‘together’ subjects, and then move into the individual subjects. In reality, they are rarely done on time, and we end up finishing up chores later in the day. I know when they are focused, they can do this routine in less than an hour, but they can also drag it out for several hours. Our next habit will be on focused attention!
My morning routine is simply chaotic. After finding a good bedtime routine, I am motivated to work on my morning routine.
Our 9 year old has a nice morning routine that we set up together and it is working really well for her. I will share that. Her list is very detailed but she needs that. We don’t have a set wake up time. I let their bodies be their alarm clock unless we have to go some where like co-op on Mondays during the school year.
Wake up
Bible reading and prayer
Make bed
Pick up bedroom
Shower
Get dressed
Brush hair
Breakfast
Clear dishes
Brush teeth
Morning chores: put clean dishes away, feed & water chickens, pick up bathroom, start her laundry if it’s her laundry day
Ready for school
We are early risers for the most part . I get up around 5:45 – 6:00 am – I try to use that time for my own prayer time & devotional , preview the days math lessons etc . My son wakes up at 6:30 am every morning like clockwork . He will do something quiet like drawing or reading until 7am . 7am is breakfast , we all eat together .
After breakfast the kids do their 5 fingers – make beds, get dressed, wash their own cereal bowl , straighten room & feed pets .
We start school at 8am with our morning basket .Thursdays are our co-op day and we head out the door around 8:30.
Hopefully you can get some good ideas or some inspiration from the moms on here 🙂 This is a great forum !
Blessings,
Jamie
We have a Family Work routine that we do together but because the kids don’t wake at the same time…it’s not always the first thing we do. In the perfect world in my head, we’d be starting our day together at 8am. But alas, life does not pan out that way and I’ve recently been reminding myself flexibility is one of the perks of homeschooling!
I have our days fairly structured and do require the kids to complete their work in the order I’ve written for them. So if one is still sleeping and we can’t do our family work, the other can begin on their independent/teacher-guided work. When the sleepy head wakes, we’ll do our Morning Routine.
Our family work/morning routine goes like this M,T,Th,Fri…
Hymn
CNN Student news
Copywork
Geography
Memory Work
7 minute workout or Brain Gym video via YouTube
On Weds we do a “chapel” instead. We listen to a short sermon together and have a family prayer time.
We’ve done a lot of different routines but this one has worked really well this year.
We also end our days together with a second Family Work session. That’s when we’ll do our read-aloud, music or art appreciation and nature study. Depending on the day.
I have never been successful with routine, and I have graduated 3, with one to go. She needs more structure and it has been very difficult to implement. I have been learning to structure myself first, like making sure I have my personal Bible/prayer time ‘before’ I do anything else. When my daughter gets up, one thing I try to do first each morning, before any academic work, is Bible/character study and prayer with her. That is the key to having school days run smoothly.
I do like what someone said about doing chores before school, like laundry, dishes, etc. I usually try to stagger that during school and often I get side-tracked and it gets later and later in the day. My daughter does not do much work independently because of dyslexia and other LD, so much of my time is required to just get her through her schoolwork. I need to have a routine, just so I can have time to do my extra projects, like sewing a rag quilt for my soon-to-be-born grandson. I can never seem to find time to get at it. I am gleaning from ideas here, and hope to implement a consistent routine in the fall.
I struggle with routine too. I think it would help if we all had a specific wake-up time everyday.
psreitmom, or an others, if you would like to encourage one another and share our routines through emails, I think we could stay focused better and help one another out. You can send a message to me at my yahoo email which is wherelearningabounds.
As I work mornings, establishing a morning routine has been a struggle. I am often the only one up when I leave, though sometimes our 10 year old (11 next month) is up before I leave for the office at 8:45 am. From what I can figure, my teenage son gets up at about 10:30 am. My husband’s schedule varies from day to day, so what time he gets up and leaves all depends on the day.
The boys are supposed to have certain chores and subjects complete when I get home, though that can be hit and miss depending on whether or not Dad is home, what distractions they have found through the morning, or what they may have encountered difficulty with.
At this point it is more important to establish and afternoon routine for our school time, and we’ve been having a lot of difficulty with that. Does anyone else school at times other than morning?
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