gather. {for morning time}

Gathering for Morning Time is one of my favorite parts of our homeschool day.

In the first year of my blog, I talked about Morning Time...what it is, how we do it, and why we do it:

Several years ago, I stumbled across an idea that breathed new life into our homeschool. “Morning Time” has become an anticipated and much-loved part of our day, and I believe that we are all the richer for it. It is a simple idea, and yet it is profound. I first read about “Morning Time” one summer on Cindy Rollins’ blog, Ordo Amoris (which is always full of mind food). She wrote about the benefits her family has reaped by dedicating a small amount time each morning to learning the things that she had deemed important. Cindy shared this childhood poem to illustrate what she was trying to accomplish: Little drops of water, Little grains of sand, Make the mighty ocean, And the beauteous land. She wrote, My Morning Time is a way to collect little grains of sand. It should not be a way to complicate life but a way to simplify it. When I read this, I knew that this was something I wanted to do! You see, there were things that I wanted my children to learn (actually, I wanted to learn too!), but they were things that were too often overlooked or put off for another time. I wanted my girls to know the words to “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come”, to recite Psalm 100, to recognize Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, to recite “The Swing,” to begin each day with the Living Word...and “Morning Time” seemed to hold an answer. So come the beginning of our new school year, we gave it a try. And, several years later, it remains an integral part of our day and (I am repeating myself here) we are all the richer for it.

Homeschooling mom, if you want your students to memorize Scripture or view great art or read poetry or learn Shakespeare, consider setting aside a bit of time each day for your own Morning Time. (Yours can look entirely different from ours; you will include those things that you deem important.)

Our Morning Time for this autumn looks something like this...

BIBLE READING
This year we will be reading through various books in the Bible that correlate with our ancient history studies. Currently we are reading Genesis.

BIBLE MEMORY

First verse of the year: Galatians 2:20. (We will continue to review Romans 8 from time to time.) 

SING A HYMN

We are learning "I Sing the Mighty Power of God" by Isaac Watts.  We aim at memorization which usually takes 6 to 8 weeks per hymn.

POETRY RECITATION

Each of us recites the poem we're memorizing. Bekah has almost mastered “The Mirror” by A. A. Milne. She'll soon be ready to chose another poem. I am learning Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" and I am by no means ready to move on.  

POETRY EXPOSURE

I choose a poet to study for a time. We read a selected work of our chosen poet two or three days in a row and sometimes read a biography. Our poet for this term is William Shakespeare and we are reading from Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare.  

LISTEN TO A PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

This term we are listening to the music of Niccolo Paganini. We are reading Paganini: Master of Strings by Opal Wheeler.

ART APPRECIATION

We began this year (actually during our summer break) to study the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Kristin was teaching a unit on FLW to her children, and invited Bekah to join in some of the activities. (She was thrilled! One of the activities was to design a house!) She was so interested, we checked out a few books from the library, and watched a Ken Burns documentary on Wright. 

Currently, we are studying the art of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.  Because we have recently read about the Tower of Babel, I have chosen his interpretation of the Tower as our first Bruegel painting. We are also reading What Makes a Bruegel a Bruegel?

The Tower of Babel
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563

And that's our Morning Time plan for this term.  Small investment, great returns!

This is day 16 in the series gather.  Click ~here~ to see more.