Our Morning Time

Look at me writing 2 posts so close together!!

So... I have loved listening to the podcasts on morning time called "Your Morning Basket".

I have listened to all of them. Very inspiring! They are all worthwhile to listen to, but I have to tell you that episode #2 with Andrew Pudewa is a game changer (in the homeschool sense).

We have had our own variations on morning time in our house. When my girls were younger (they are now 31, 30, 28 and 22 years old), we had "seat work time" and "couch time". I'd say that couch time was our version of what is now being called morning time. For the most part, we read historical fiction, discussed history (I would either read from or discuss from a text), learned a little geography, read the bible, had prayer time, and had some pretty fun discussions.

There was a transition when my now 28 year old became sort of a teachers helper for her younger sister. I remember working on art appreciation with her at the helm.

When my boys came along, morning time started out being our picture book reading time. I would sit at the table with them and read while they ate. As they got a little older, we began doing faith reading with or right after breakfast before they had a chance to get away. We colored pictures to go with the readings or just talked about them. We usually had our prayer time together during this time too.

As they aged into the school years, we would often read our Five in a Row book together and discuss one of the topics listed in the guide. When we got deeper into the discussion, the youngest child at the time would usually slip under the table in to his own world.

This all might take place in two sittings- once at breakfast time and once at lunch time.

Here is a post from 2010 at my Catholic Baby Steps blog about our morning reading.
http://catholicbabysteps.blogspot.com/2010/06/faith-reading.html

All of this to say- I miss morning time! There are just some things that are nice to work on together. I have been inspired to regroup and work on it.

I am still working on our rotation, but this is what we have:

Christ the King Lord of History (yes it is a text, but are all enjoying it)- I read this twice a week or so and we have some great discussions about the topic we read about.

The Fallacy Detective- I read one of the very short chapters once or twice a week. It was mentioned in one of the podcasts and I realized that I had it on my shelf yet to be completed. It would not be very enjoyable to work on alone- it lends it self to a group discussion.

Economics/Government-  Once a week or so, we watch various videos related to both topics (Paul does additional work on his own). We are working on memorizing the first 52 words of the constitution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggXSO0ETvq4 (Watch this short but informative video!)
http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/economics-3rd-edition.html

For fun, we are rotating in a few Great Courses programs-
How To Play Chess (very informative even to my chess playing sons)
The Mathematics of Games and Puzzles

We have a few more courses that we have not watched yet.

In the past we had music and art appreciation- I would like to sneak some of that in too! :)

I wish we had transitioned from our morning time/learning time to this current version without interruption. As my older boys entered high school they started waking up at different times and I never working on finding a new fit. I have heard that often the older children transition out of morning time, but with my boys being the last 3 at home, it makes sense to all do it together. The dynamic lends itself to some lively and interesting discussions.

So far, the input from my boys has been mostly positive. I can't say that they loved the Great Courses Economics videos, but we did have some good discussions after watching them.