Our Preschool Homeschool Morning Time

Hi, it's been a while! We've been busy preparing our garden for the summer and doing end of year school things. Let’s pivot and talk about our pre-k homeschool light! While I do have my kids in a church preschool part time for childcare while my husband and I work, I also have a strong desire to homeschool them. Homeschooling is something I could talk about for days, but that is another post for another time. For now, to get into a rhythm and have a discipleship time on our own at home, we do morning time together most mornings at breakfast. Morning time is a concept in the Charlotte Mason homeschooling world where the family gathers and learns all together. The beauty subjects (poetry, art, music, and other humanities) and Bible are what are frequently covered during this time, as well as other subjects that the family all wants to cover together. Homeschool really overwhelmed me at first, and I couldn’t figure out how to get started with it until we started morning time. However, you don’t have to homeschool or have a desire to homeschool in order to do morning time! It can also just be a sweet way to gather together as a family and disciple your kids before school. I follow a woman who desires to homeschool but can't and does morning time discipleship with her kids every morning instead. Having this rhythm has really helped the overall flow of my day, and getting into a routine in general helps my home overall stay more organized and clean! Rhythms are what have really helped redeem my messiness and start to enjoy motherhood more, and this is my favorite one.

Last year I bought and tried one curriculum that I liked, but we couldn’t get into a rhythm with it. I was disorganized and overwhelmed. This year I found another one that I love and find the organization better- it’s Gentle + Classical Press’s Preschool program. Their teacher’s guide is completely free, so I downloaded the digital version and had it printed by The Homeschool Printing Company, which makes it really affordable. If you want to buy the bundle with the fun cards for a memory board and everything needed for each week, use my link to get $5 off $20 for new customers (I don't make any money off this, just love sharing my favorite products!). To simplify and make it work for us in the current season we're in, I don’t do every single thing in each unit, and the way I use it really only takes 15-30 minutes a day. We also don’t do it every morning if we don’t feel like it, which really takes the pressure off and makes it more fun to not be legalistic about it. It’s such a fun way to connect with my kids and read aloud to them, which is so important to me to be able to do frequently with them.

The Gentle + Classical Preschool Guide lays out what to do each unit, or week, but here are the resources I use (these are geared toward my 4 year old, and my 2 year old tags along):

We start each morning off by reading one Bible story from The Jesus Storybook Bible. It took me a minute to get used to the unique style of writing, but now I absolutely love it and how theologically sound it is. The way each story has Jesus woven into it is so beautiful, not to mention the gorgeous illustrations that go with it. We also have the coloring book if you want your kids to have their hands busy while you read if you don’t do it during breakfast like we do. Other children’s Bibles we have used include The Beginner’s Bible (they have a lot of children’s Bible resources you could use for morning time as well) which we will start again after we get through Jesus Storybook since we are almost done with it, A Child’s First Bible which could be used for slightly younger ages, and Baby’s First Bible Stories which is a very cute board book we got as a baby shower gift made for the littlest ones. For next year I ordered The Biggest Story Bible Storybook to do with our kindergarten program. It’s a little bit more advanced than the others, it’s so beautifully illustrated, and I think it will be perfect for my kindergartener. They have a family devotional that I’ve heard great things about and am debating getting. Also check out their whole Bible curriculum for kindergarten through 5th grade which would be perfect for morning time, verse cards to help with memorization, activity book, and coloring book to keep hands busy while you read.

The next thing I read is one poem from three different poetry books. It may sound dry, but these are fun and age-appropriate poems to get them exposed to the beauty of poetry. The first one is The Llama Who Had No Pajama, which has so many silly and fun poems in it with cute illustrations. I read the same poem every day for a week. I do the same thing with The Classic Collection of Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, which is another fun and beautifully illustrated collection. I think it’s important to expose our kids to these classic tales and fun rhymes and songs we grew up with. We also have and will continue to use once we are done with the 100 in that collection, The Real Mother Goose, which has a more vintage look and I believe more rhymes in it. The last and my favorite poetry collection is Sing a Song of Seasons, which has a fun, seasonal nature poem for each day of the year. The illustrations are beautiful in this one as well, the colors just stand out!

Usually we do our memory statements/verse from the Gentle + Classical Preschool program next, and I also get up for a coffee refill after that while I play the memory songs on my Spotify playlist. To do the memory verses, I just read them and have the kids (really just my 4 year old, but the 2 year old does it too) repeat it. For the catechism, I ask the question and they answer it once we have gone over it together a few times. Each of these is just said once a day. You can use any good collection of catechisms that go with your faith background- catechism is not just a Catholic thing, it’s a great way to teach theological truths to kids! We have the cute little booklet,The New City Catechism for Kids, which is very cheap on Amazon. I love that they have songs to go with each statement that you can find on Spotify, as songs are a great way to help kids solidify them into their memory. They also have a whole curriculum for kids ages 8-12.

One day a week I read a devotional from one of two books. Big Thoughts for Little People is a cute little ABC book with one Biblical truth for each letter of the alphabet. It has a short reading, some questions to talk about with your kids, and a Bible verse you can either memorize or just read. Leading Little Ones to God is longer as it has 86 Biblical truths that it goes over and will last me a few years. This one also has a reading that is longer than the ones in Big Thoughts, questions to discuss with your kids, a suggested Bible reading that we don’t usually do since we are reading a Bible story every morning, a hymn, and prayer. The illustrations are more sporadic as compared to Big Thoughts which has a big, catchy illustration on each page. We also have Big Truths for Little Kids for when we finish Big Thoughts. This one has catechism questions, stories to illustrate each principle, questions, and a prayer.

Finally, if there is time left and the kids are still engaged I read picture books. The Gentle + Classical Preschool has a featured picture book each week, so I try to reserve that at the library to pick up before that week starts. I also read a story from a treasury if we are still hanging out at the table. My favorite treasury so far is The 20th-Century Children's Book Treasury, which has the best and most beloved books from when I was growing up. We also like and use A Max Lucado Children's Treasury and James Herriot's Treasury for Children, both of which have longer stories that can be read over several morning times. There are so many lovely children’s treasuries filled with beautiful stories including The Illustrated Treasury of Classic Children's Stories, The Berenstain Bears' Storytime Collection (my 4 year old picks this a lot for bedtime stories), A Little House Picture Book Treasury, Make Way for McCloskey: A Robert McCloskey Treasury, The Complete Tales of Winnie-The-Pooh, Beatrix Potter the Complete Tales, and The Complete Brambly Hedge. Just pick one and start reading! You can also find many of these used on thrift books, which is where I buy a lot of my books.

This sounds like a lot, but it really is just sitting down for 15-30 minutes and enjoying reading with your kids. It’s so good for your kids to hear living stories and ideas that are well-written. Reading aloud to children is very important because it helps with language development, builds bonds, and fosters a love of reading. It can also help them develop empathy, patience, and communication skills. I’m a big reader, so it’s important to me to try to develop that same love in my children. Reading is such an important part of their learning as well. Overall I just enjoy spending this time with them. I recommend morning time especially if you have your kids in public school and are looking for a way to add more Biblical truths into their day. If you start your own morning time routines let me know what works for you and the changes you have seen in your home!

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