morning basket organization

My biggest advice if you are just starting morning time is to start simple. Just a few things at a time, and build up to more. It can be really easy to get overwhelmed and give up.

And be flexible. There will be days you have to skip something. Depending on what it is I have to skip, I might just wait until the next day to do it, or skip it until the next time on the loop.

My kids are 8, 11, and 14 so they can sit a little longer than younger kids might be able to. But while we are listening to the read-alouds, they are allowed to build with legos or color pictures so that helps them be able to sit still for a little longer.

I have attached my morning time schedule. We do the next thing on the enrichment loop each day. I have found for us it’s better to do the next thing, rather than try to say Monday for Composer, etc because then we might skip the same day each week and never get to something. HTH!

­Family Studies Schedule

Morning Time

·         Scripture Memorization

·         Poetry Memorization

·         Hymn (we sing a hymn together, I don’t really go into an in-depth study, just enjoy the music and words.)

·         Enrichment Studies Loop (see below – we do one thing on the loop per day – the next thing on the list so we don’t skip things)

·         Literature Read-aloud / Audio Book

·         Folk Song (listen on Amazon) / Get up and move time – Dance time

·         History Spine Read-aloud

·         History Read-Aloud / Audiobook

Enrichment Loop 

Composer Study / SQUILT

Artist/ Picture Study

Poet Biography (We do one poet per term, so a few minutes of reading is all we do.) / Sometimes we will introduce a new poem to memorize during this time too.

I have plans to implement the next two things during morning time next year, but as of yet we haven’t done much with them yet.

Nature Study

Free Writing

Bedtime

Book of Virtues / Bedtime Math / Prayer

We had three loops going last year, which worked well for us.  I had a language arts loop, another for content subjects (like science, geography/Bible, and history), and a third for our extras/fine arts (like picture study, LDTR for Children, handicrafts, poetry, etc.).  We’d select one or two things from each loop, plus our daily subjects (math, Latin, piano, phonics).

Bethanna,

It was mostly skills based, but some things were done together to save time.  We mostly used ELTL, but subbed in some SCM materials for copywork and dictation.  So we skipped the copywork & dictation portion of ELTL.   ELTL has 3 lessons per week, so I tried to get in 3 loops, but it didn’t always happen.  Our loop went something like:

• ELTL lesson (20-30 minutes): We used levels 2, 4, & 5, so this was skill based.  I worked mostly with my Level 2 child, but helped my older two as needed.  They had a grammar or writing lesson, fable (often with narration), poem, and some grammar exercises (labeling or diagramming sentences).
• copywork (5-10 minutes): middle two DC used SCM’s Print to Cursive Proverbs, oldest DD just worked on her Book of Mottoes.  We did this as a group, but with everyone going at their own pace.  Everyone got their book & pen, then we’d set a timer for 5 minutes.
• Grammar memory (5-10 minutes): ELTL has them memorize things like the definition of a noun, types of sentences, or months of the year.  We did this as a group since they shared many of the same definitions to memorize.
• Spelling Wisdom (10-15 minutes):  Oldest 2 added this, younger ones did additional copywork or read aloud from their McGuffey readers in place of dictation
• Poetry/Shakespeare (10-15 minutes)–as a group.  This year we combined Shakespeare & poetry using Poetry For Young People’s book on Shakespeare.  We also added in some “fun” poems from Random House Book of Poetry for Children.

We covered literature at a different point in our day (often just before lunch).   Phonics instruction for my beginning reader was daily and often scheduled when the others finished up their math, since her math never took very long.  She also did a phonics workbook during the LA loop.  She joined in with poetry & memory work, but that was about it.