A BREAKDOWN OF OUR HOMESCHOOL MORNING MEETINGS
Circle Time, Morning Basket, Morning Time…or to us, homeschool Morning Meeting–they’re all the same idea, just maybe executed in slightly different ways.
In preschool, you might see the teacher reciting the date, the weather, the letter of the day, or the leader for the week. For us, every day of school begins with Morning Meeting. What started as a quick rundown of the day’s activities and then maybe a reading or two, has morphed into much more over the last couple of years. We pack a lot into this morning session and we cover a lot of ground.
Some days, even if nothing else gets accomplished, I know we’ve done a lot in Morning Meeting, so I don’t feel so badly.
This is a breakdown of our homeschool Morning Meetings.
{You can watch the replay of my Periscope on our Morning Meetings HERE.}
What we include in our Homeschool Morning Meeting
We include quite a bit during our hour-long meeting, but don’t be deceived by this list. We just a loop schedule for all these subjects, so what we don’t get to one day, we’ll probably get to the next. The first two items on the list are every day staples–we don’t skip those or include them on the list, but the rest all rotates. It works really well for us.
- Calendar–we go over the week’s events or the day’s events…my kids really like to know what’s going on
- Memory Work
- Vocabulary or Idiom of the Day
- Math Problem
- Art History
- History
- Science
- Geography
Memory Work, Vocabulary, and Math at Morning Meeting
- Memory work can be anything! States and capitals, the presidents, the periodic table–my kids just memorized the kings of England! We love using Thirty Days has September, a compilation of a TON of things to memorize that are set to poems or other easy ditties to make it easy to memorize. We also love Carol Barnier’s CD on ditties for memory work too.
- There’s lots of ways you can do vocabulary, but right now we are using the book 100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know and it works great with all my kids.
- A quick little math problem is a great way to do math in a fun way. My kids love Bedtime Math for this. Also, Daily Word Problems is a great series for every grade. I’m about to pick up a few more of these since we’ve done every problem in our Bedtime Math book.
History + Geography in Morning Meeting
- Usually, unless we’re doing a history project, our history includes some kind of reading. I was having a hard time fitting this reading time in until I realized I could incorporate it into Morning Meeting and be finished with it barely before our day started! It’s been great! So now, we do a history reading on our loop schedule. Depending on the day, we’ll do a chapter from Story of the World or out of a history read aloud or a biography. Currently, we are reading Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley. Then in the afternoon–when we have a project planned, we will do it then–after our regular math, language arts and such is finished so we don’t feel rushed or bogged down by other things.
- Geography is something that I always want to be better about covering, but aside from our regular mapwork in history, we seldom get to it. This is something else that we decided to add earlier this month. Sophia has always had a fascination with India, so I want to feed that interest. We are looking at a number of children’s atlases, coloring maps, learning cities and rivers of India, and learning about what Hinduism is. We’ve also started reading some Indian folktales as well. I am hoping we can really do some fun things this quarter with India. Things like go to an Indian restaurant, learn to tie saris, or do henna. Some fun art projects with elephants or peacocks would be great too!
Art History at Morning Meeting
- We love doing all sorts of art in our homeschool, but sometimes it’s hard to get to things like picture study and artist study and art history. I wanted to incorporate this into our Morning Meeting and it’s been working great. We don’t do art at this time, but we just read a little something about art during this time. Right now we’re reading through 13 Art Mysteries Every Child Should Know. It’s perfect for this time and it’s sparked a lot of great conversations!
Science in your Morning Meeting
Science is not our best subject, but alas, my kids are always asking to do more of it. At our new year come-to-Jesus meeting earlier this month, my kids requested we do a study on snow, winter weather, animals in winter, etc, and I obliged. I have a pile of books on request at the library and we’re reading through some of the books we already own.
Learning Well LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links from Amazon or other programs are used on this website. For more info, please refer to our disclosure statement.
We have read Over and Under the Snow and learned about the subnivian zone, which is pretty impressive because I had no idea this word even existed and we’re only doing science for 20 minutes or so, not even every day.
The kids are drawing and doing written narrations in some blank books (ours are actually paperback books from the Target Dollar Spot, but these are great too) I had and hopefully by the end of February we’ll have some fancy portfolios to show off.
If you’re feeling like you just can’t fit everything in, maybe try a Morning Time of some sort. Usually at our meeting we’ve already had breakfast and are dressed. Sometimes the kids are eating breakfast at Morning Meeting, which is fine too. It works great for us! I hope this helps you get to more of those fun things you want to do in your homeschool. That has definitely been the case for us!
I love your blog! We are considering homeschooling for the first time ever and I happened upon your site. Thank you for the great morning meeting ideas. I am a designer and I create planners. I am thinking of creating a homeschooling/teacher/life planner. You can reach me at [email protected] if you’d like to give me some ideas of things you’d love in the planner and I will make sure to send you one for free once produced. CarrieCreations.net if you want to see our quarterly planner. Thanks again.
Just reserved "13 Art Mysteries Children Should Know" through Interlibrary Loan! Thanks!
Thanks for sharing what you do!! We started doing a morning circle year with my kids (8yrs and 2yrs) and it has been such a great way to start the day! We change our calendar, do some kids yoga or other movement, read a poem or folktale, look through some flashcards (currently french numbers for my big girl and regular numbers for my toddler). I am thinking we should add memory work in and I just ordered the book you recommended 🙂
Inspired. Off to spend too much on amazon! By the way, I couldn't help but notice the killer map in the background of the scope, and it gave me an idea for your videos since you sometimes ask. Hopefully this doesn't sound creepy, but I'd love a 'house tour'. Since you've moved we get little glimpses, but it's be fun to do a walk through and see whole rooms. Is that creepy? lol. I love seeing other people's homes and decor!
also loved your scope today! thank you for taking the time to share what you are doing with your family. such great resources!! much love to you!
I think you just answered my science prayers! I've been hunting for something! And I kept saying I wanted Story of the World for Science! I'm so excited to go check this out!
This post and your scope were so informative, thank you so much for sharing! I've added so many books to my wishlist. You are my favorite Periscoper, I always learn so much. (And your homeschooling ones are my favorite and I technically don't even homeschool 🙂 -hopefully next year though!)
Your scope was great !! Thanks for sharing.
We have been doing Elemental Science's Biology for Grammar Stage and LOVE it. It reminds me of The Story of the World's activity book–but for science. It's more of a guide, with books I check out from the library, activities, memory work, copy work, and my kids also draw in their sketchbooks. I pick and choose what and how I want to talk about it. My 8 year olds and my 5 year old all enjoy it.
https://elementalscience.com/collections/biology-for-the-grammar-stage
THanks for sharing all your resources too!
You are such a great momma!
There are some homeschool science
events in that Gale Woods Farm
link that I sent you ~ might fit in
perfectly with your current science
curriculum!
xo Suzanne