Because we have such a wide variety of ages and stages in our home, I love to start our mornings together with what we call Morning Meeting. My older kids do most of their school work independently while I work with the younger kids, so I barely see them during our school time.
Starting the day with a Morning Meeting helps us all spend some quality time together before the busy-ness of the day pulls us in opposite directions.
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What is a Morning Meeting?
In our home, a morning meeting is exactly what it sounds like. All of the kids and I gather together to have a quick meeting. Some families may call it Circle Time. Since most of my kids are older, we’ve changed the name to make it sound a little less preschool-ish.
Of course, you don’t have to meet in the morning. So if you met at some other time of day, you’d probably want to call it something different. Maybe you’d have a Mid-Day Meet-Up? Or an Afternoon Assembly? Or even a Dinner Discussion? Whatever works…
The important thing is to take some time to be together. Our meetings have a daily rhythm, but not a structured checklist. We do what we can get through in about half an hour.
What’s Included in Our Basket?
Our morning meeting basket holds everything we need for our meetings in one convenient location. I can add and remove as needed, and we can move from room to room if necessary.
Here’s a list of our non-negotiables:
These are the things that we cover every day. It’s become a rhythmic habit, so the kids know what to expect and even help keep me on track sometimes. 🙂
- Sing “This is the Day”: This is our sort of “call to order” to get our meeting started.
- Pledge: We say the pledge to the flag daily.
- Catechism: We use this First Catechism even with the big kids, because it’s full of gospel truth even if it’s written for younger kids.
- Memory Verse: The goal is to learn a verse each week. We’re currently using My ABC Bible Verses: Hiding God’s Word in Little Hearts. And while it’s written for little ones, it’s still full of God’s Word.
- Bible Story: We’re currently reading the New Testament stories from The 10 Minute Bible Journey. Once we complete the New Testament stories, we’ll start over at Creation and read through the Old Testament stories.
- Five in a Row Story: This is kinda in-between non-negotiable and negotiable. If we were really short on time, and the big kids had lessons they really needed to get to, we’d skip the story for the day. Or at least during Morning Meeting. The big kids have heard these stories many times before, so it’s okay if they miss here and there.
And for our Negotiable Subjects:
This may get me in a little bit of trouble with other Charlotte Mason moms as I know these subjects are pretty important to that teaching style. Therefore, I consider my teaching style ‘eclectic’ since I don’t adhere strictly to any single teaching style. We cover these subjects as time allows.
- Composer Study: I found this book many years ago, and we’ve used it off and on for that long. It includes a brief biography of 16 famous composers as well as a CD with examples of their work. Exposure and familiarity are the goal, not necessarily mastery.
- Hymn Study: Stories of the Great Hymns is one of those resources that I’m ashamed to admit that I have owned for years and never got around to using. It’s in our Morning Basket now, so I hope to use it this year. It includes the background stories of 12 Christian hymns along with simplified arrangements.
- Artist Study: I use printable resources from Productive Homeschooling for our artist study. I try to align the artists we study with the time period we’re covering in history. We observe different pieces by the same artist, noticing similarities and differences in the artist’s work. I’ve been amazed at how my students come to recognize even works that we haven’t studied by recognizing the artist’s style.
- Character Study: The Children’s Book of Virtues is my preferred resource for teaching character traits. The book contains a collection of poems and short stories that illustrate a specific trait.
- Vocabulary Study: For vocabulary, we use English from the Roots Up. Up until now, we’ve only used the flashcards, but I’m hoping to have the big kids make their own vocabulary notebooks this year.
- Missionary Study: I ordered To Every Nation, volumes 1 and 2 from Not Consumed. We’ve read many of the YWAM missionary biographies before, but I’ve heard such great things about these studies, I wanted to check them out. We haven’t used them yet, and if we use them during morning meeting, we’ll have to adjust the lesson plans to work with our various age groups.
Benefits of a Morning Meeting
Nothing in our home is perfect, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see the benefits of having a consistent morning meeting with my homeschool crew. We come together as a family unit and focus on what needs to be accomplished for the day.
I love watching the big kids look out for and encourage the little kids. We’re memorizing Scripture and eventually, we’ll add poetry and other important writings. We pray together daily, and our school day starts on a positive note.
Without a doubt, this is my favorite part of our school day, and I hope it will become one of my children’s favorite memories.