Our Homeschool Morning Time Routine

Although this is our 9th year homeschooling, by no means do I know everything there is to know about it.

Take morning time, for example.

Up until very recently, while I had heard the term “morning time” over and over again, I never really made much of an effort to find out what it was because I was happy with where we were at in our homeschool and didn’t see the need to try anything new.

Eventually, curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to find out what the fuss was all about. Interestingly enough, I discovered that morning time actually would fit perfectly into our homeschool routine because we were pretty much already doing it! 

What is morning time?

Before I get too far into this, let me explain what this is for those of you new to the game. Simply put, morning time is a period in a homeschool day in which everyone learns together.

Typically, this will happen first thing, hence the name, and with good reason. Easing into a homeschool day while relaxing together as a family is an ideal way to pull in any subjects or concepts that seem to keep getting overlooked.

Morning time will look different in every single home, as it should, since it is up to the facilitator to decide what is worthy of spending time on each day. Some options may include:

• read-alouds
• poetry
• scripture memorization
• Bible
• copywork
• art study
• composer study
• nature study
• and anything else you can think of!

I think it’s worth pointing out that morning time doesn’t actually have to happen in the morning. Since I have so many children, I’ve opted to do morning time with my middles and a slightly condensed “afternoon time” with my littles.

Here’s a little glimpse into what we include in our morning time routine.

Our Large Family Morning Time Routine

Each of our morning time rotations takes anywhere from 5-45 minutes, and we are typically finished with our morning time in 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 hours. I know this may seem long for a standard morning time, but this is because, since we do most of our learning together, morning time takes up the bulk of our homeschool.

And that’s okay with us. 🙂

Now on to our routine!

Our Morning Time Line Up:

Bible (Est. time- 5-10 minutes):

My four children who compose my “middles” and I each take turns reading from the Bible, one verse at a time. We’re hoping to read through the entire thing over the next several years.

Read-Aloud (Est. time- 20-30 minutes):

This is truly one of our favorite times of the day, and I can’t count the number of times my kids have begged me to read one more chapter.

I do use this time as practice for my children’s oral narration skills, so I usually stop after every few pages to give someone a chance to narrate. This really helps them to hone both their listening and speaking skills, and I really like to know that they’re actually paying attention!

Loop Schedule (Est. time- 10-20 minutes)

Our loop schedule is simply a collection of activities and concept practices that we rotate our way through. Right now, we have four topics in this rotation:

• Mad Libs
• Cursive
• Grammar practice
• Story of the World

We do not do each of these activities every single day; we do one, and then we move on to the next one the next day.

Foundational Learning (Est. time- 20-45 minutes)

I call this time “Foundational Learning” time because this is when we implement our unit studies or literature-based learning.

Morning time is a quintessential element to add to a relaxed homeschool atmosphere. I cannot tell you how much more we’ve enjoyed our homeschool since implementing these simple and effective activities in the beginning of our days.  

Your turn: I’d love to hear your morning time ideas. Leave a comment!