This Is How We: Morning Time in a Rush

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​Today I wanted to share what we do when we have a full day ahead and I feel like we just won’t have time to fit in our enrichments; things that can often be overlooked like Artist Study, Folksongs, Hymns, Music Study, etc.
Our deliciously slow morning basket turns into a speed dating of sorts with the enrichments. Can’t wait to show you how we do it.

​On another video, I introduced to you what’s in our morning basket and how we use it in our homeschool. I can link it above and below for you to check in on that.

​But the reality is that there are some days when the deliciously slow & intentional morning basket mornings are just not feasible.  I still want to fit in our enrichments, more than anything to create that habit of looking for beauty and setting this feast of creativity as a priority for my children, but because of what has to get done for the day, or extracurricular activities abound that day, or just our overall mood and temperament call for something different than our OG morning basket ritual.

Prayers & Hymn

​We take out our home-made morning menu, start with our prayers and then move into hymns.  At the beginning of the year, I create playlists of the rotation of hymns and folksongs on the docket for the year.  This makes it so easy to quickly access them.  You can create similar playlists on Spotify, Amazon Music or other services like that or you can follow someone else’s playlist.  I decided to create my own as I picked several versions the kids might like and then allowed them to choose which one we would listen to for the term or year.  I think this has helped them feel more of a bond to the selection.  They still ask to listen to many hymns and folksongs from earlier on.

This is really quick.  We just listen through and sing along.  That’s it.

Folksong

​Then we flow into the folk song which almost always makes Chiara stand up and dance.  There is a really sweet mama that follows Ambleside Online that has a YouTube Channel devoted to singing the rotation of Hymns and Folksongs. We love how clear her voice is so we can hear the lyrics and she has become a comforting friend from afar in our home. I’ll link her channel below for you all.

Again, this is as quick as the song is long.  We just listen through, follow the lyrics, sing along, maybe dance a little.

Skip Counting

​Then we follow our morning menu right into skip counting.  Right now my daughter is solidifying her skip counting by 2.  She thinks she knows it really well, but still makes a few mistakes here and there. Until she can do it without any errors, we practice away.

Poetry Recitation

​Poetry Recitation midway through the term is pretty easy as I just ask her on these quick-ish mornings to just recite the two poems we’ve been working on from memory.  This gives me a chance to see which verses she needs to go over and drill a little bit to really commit them to memory. This portion of the morning flows generally quite quickly as the Year 1 poetry we selected aren’t very long.

Artist Study

​The next thing is Artist Study.  We alternate between Artist Study and Composer Study which means that we don’t do the two every single day.  Actually, we only really do Artist Study and Composer Study once a week.

Artist Study today was an overview of the story behind the painting. 
On the following week, we would look at the painting quickly and after putting it away, I’d ask my Yr1 if she can paint the painting in her mind and tell me all the details she can remember.  On other weeks, we might go more into the artist himself and what he was known for,
but today is a quick day so we go straight into the painting itself and how it makes us feel from the story it tells or the colors and light that bring it to life.

Musical Note Drill

Musical note drill is important to me because it was always my area of weakness growing up as I relied way too much on my ear to play music.  This is not my daughter’s favorite, but we just go through some foundational notes either on the treble cleff or the base cleff to train her eye and mind to start recognizing the notes more quickly. This generally only takes a minute or two.

Foreign Language: Spanish

​And then we flow into Spanish, our chosen Foreign Language Study.  Here I either have worksheets ready and prepped for her to review some vocabulary words, or I ask her to do 5-10 minutes of Duolingo, or we might go over the Spanish phrases we’re learning from our “Speaking Spanish with Miss Mason” book.  Since I’m a Spanish speaker, I might also go over key phrases with her like: 1) How to introduce yourself, 2) How old she is, 3) How to introduce her family, etc.

Resources Used:

Plastic Restaurant Menu Covers for your Morning Menu

Rectangular Lined Basket to house all your Morning Enrichment Materials.

Cardstock paper to print unto and insert into your own Morning Menu.

And that’s it! Our Morning Basket-less routine on those quick enrichment mornings.  I hope that this video makes fitting in your enrichment schedule seem approachable and doable.  My biggest advice is start with one different enrichment every morning and that’s it.  Add as you feel more comfortable.  Everyone’s homeschool look’s different and perhaps this isn’t the most complete enrichment study ever, but it is our way of touching upon things that are important to us, that make school feel fun, light, and beautiful. 

May all your homeschool days feel the same!
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Until next time friends!