My way of getting our homeschool day started right.

Probably my favorite homeschooling habit has been the Morning Meeting. Here’s my personal schedule as I’ve entered it in my Homeschool Planet planner for the week, with a few things made up or left off for privacy:

For several years now, since I’ve had kids big enough to learn to show up for things on time, we’ve had a “schoolroom by 9 a.m.” rule. This was scandalous to one of our public schooled friends. “You’re home all day and you still have to get there on time?” Well, yes. Being a functioning human being includes knowing how to show up on time and ready for your task. My students are expected to have chores done, get dressed, and get into the schoolroom before I do. That’s not too much to ask, especially since I’m usually a little bit late getting there myself. My morning routine isn’t the same as theirs. After I make breakfast, I take time to work out and get ready while they eat and do their chores. So if I’m late, that’s fine, they can get started on the assignments from their printed lists.

At nine o’clock, or whenever I manage to get my Teacher Hat on, we’ll start off with prayer, Bible-reading, and whatever subjects can be taught to all ages simultaneously. Everybody does creative writing to his own level, we all study the same artist, portion of Plutarch, theology reading (currently reading parts of Calvin’s Institutes), music study, etc. It’s very much like a one-room schoolhouse would have been, I imagine.

After whatever we’re doing together is finished, I’ll ask individuals in their turn to narrate from their readings, turn in earlier work, and ask any questions they may have about their days’ schedules. Then I teach the smaller classes, like Charlotte Mason Practical Geometry for the youngest three, or Apologia Botany for my youngest two. Older children are dismissed to work on their independent work. I may need to schedule individual meetings some days. I did that for several years. But for the first few weeks this year, I’ll just take the kids as they come to me and see how that goes. I only have five kids left, so it doesn’t seem as important to schedule specific times for them this year.

If we get that first hour or two together, the rest of the day usually goes well. It gets me and everybody else centered, and we feel hopeful because we’ve already gotten so much done so early. Once we’ve done all this, I can go off and do household things or whatever else I need to do, and still be available for answering questions, solving the unexpected problems that always crop up, and hearing narrations.

We are usually finished with school things by lunchtime, though the high schoolers sometimes have more to do afterwards. In the afternoons, I still expect them to be productive, except for their allowed screen-times. This routine keeps us together as a family/school, as well as making sure everything gets checked off the individual lists.

I can’t stress enough how important it is that we start our day off with worship. I don’t even have that written on our lists, as if it were just a thing to check off with the rest of it. It’s not. Jesus will always be our One Thing, and our First Thing.

How about you? Do you have a version of a Morning Meeting? I’ve dreaded having fewer students as we get older, because I’m not sure the MM will work as well with fewer people. But for the last ten years, and for the next several, it will definitely continue to be our routine. Really soak up these years, parents. They are graduated and you’re “free” in the blink of an eye. These moments are too important not to schedule.

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