"St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it.11 Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.12 When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in 'ordinate affections' or 'just sentiments' will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science.13 Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful."

CS Lewis The Abolition of Man

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Resources for those New to Morning Time

Most homeschool families eventually come to some sort of early-in-the-day group time. In our family this became known by the "original" title of Morning Time. Over the years MT became the structure on which I built our school. I started our version of this by using the time to cover the things that I loved and the things I did not want the children to miss out on in the everyday stress of schooling.  I was basically following my heart. Only later did I come to realize that the successes of our homeschool were almost entirely rooted in MT. As I have finally reached those years where some of my early plantings are now bearing fruit I have gained confidence in encouraging other mothers to incorporate MT as an excellent way to cover those areas of the curriculum most filled with truth, beauty and goodness.

If you are just beginning this journey here are some of the basic posts that may help you.

This is a start. I hope that I can work on organizing my old posts to make them more user friendly for newbies and maybe even write a book on the subject one of these days. Don't tell the boys but one of these days I may just record a MT when they aren't looking.

I am going to end here by pasting one of my more popular posts from the past which should remind you that the point of MT is not to add burdens but relieve them.

Little Grains of Sand

One of the reasons I do our Morning Time is so that I can fit things in that may get lost in the shuffle. Really I don't have this system in place to make my life harder but to make it infinitely easier. Over the years I have found ways to make it easier and easier. I am sharing those things on my blog but I wouldn't want you to misunderstand why I do them.

One of our earliest memorized poems was :


Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean,
And the beauteous land.




Can you guess how often some one in our home says, "Little drops of water....?"
Almost daily. It has even shown up in timed SAT essays.
That is the sort of sentiment that applies to everything I do as a mother.
One of the reasons I love blogging is that my whole life comes in little pats of time. I can write a blog post while waiting for the children to clean-up or finish a test etc. I can read a blog post while my Latin scholars get out their books.

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.

My parents gave me the gift of personal daily Bible reading. That is probably the most valuable gift I could have ever received from them. As a mother, you will find me on an occasional Saturday morning studying Matthew Henry or reading Keith Mathison, but my true spiritual reserve comes from a lifetime of daily Bible reading, not complicated Bible study.

If you have something that you want your children to assimilate like poetry or scripture or music or Shakespeare, forget the grand schemes, forget what the Konos mom is doing down the street, start giving that thing one or two minutes of your time daily and watch the years roll by.


Posted by Cindy Rollins at 1/27/2013 02:32:00 PM
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18 comments:

  2. So I have been doing a Morning-Time like thing with my kids since they were all preschoolers and all they did was listen while I sang some songs and recited some verses and poems. What I am wondering now is: what degree of participation should I require? Sometimes some of them will participate if there are motions to the Bible verses (I don't care for that much myself, but they like it), or they will dance to a folksong. But mostly they just sit and play with Legos or draw (especially the boys). I know they are learning things because they will correct me if I misplace an article, but they almost never say it along with me. I wonder if now (the older two are 8 and 7) I should require it, and stop being a soloist. Or if I should just let them continue to participate as they are interested.

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    1. Participation is a must. When the kids were little I often made up hand motions to the Bible verses and I still remember those verses best. With Poetry I don't just recite it, I randomly leave out words. To this day my competitive children try to fill in the blank more quickly than their siblings. You can begin doing this after just one day of reading a poem or Bible verse. My children generally sit on the couch until the reading aloud when they can get out the Keva blocks after the complete their nature notebooks.

      I think requiring them to sit during the early part of MT is a must and it is great training for their attention and also for sitting in church. I would not try to make that easier for them except to engage them in the process. I frequently stop to find out what they already know or to talk about a vocabulary word or tell a story. I also let them do this and some of the children really enjoy this ability to participate by telling what they know or a story from their life which pertains to the situation.

      None of this applies to toddlers, but I would always start all children out on the couch paying attention...then the littlest ones can end up on the floor with cars or legos sooner than the older ones. Like I said even the toddlers can learn to sit for a little bit

      Think of it as a liturgy. It is meant to have participation.

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    2. I love the last line about liturgy, Cindy. I'm a somewhat new reader - the last few months, and am really enjoying your blog.

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  3. Thank you! Here's my MT story, to prove that you don't have to be homeschooling to make this work! In my tutorial classes, we have a specific "routine" to begin the day: Informal "tell us what you've been up to" sharing time, prayer requests, and opening prayer. Next i read a poem out loud and we discuss some portion of it. It may be as simple as "did you hear that simile?" or "since we are reading Prince Caspian, can you tell why I chose this one?" If the student brings in a copy of the poem next week, they get extra credit. My resources for poems are Harp & Laurel Wreath, The Classic 100, and various anthologies I have on my shelves. Thank you for posting your list! I see we have similar choices and you've helped me fill in some blanks!
    Hugs,
    Renee

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  5. (Oops, I was signed on under my son's account, so I'm reposting under my own name.)

    I'm so thankful for this post, Cindy! I've sent moms to read your posts about Morning Time, so it is wonderful to have a post which compiles all those helpful resources into one.

    We have been doing Morning Time off and on ever since the kids were young, but I never had a name for it until I discovered your blog. In the toddler years, we focused on the Bible, hymns, prayer, and reading aloud. As the kids grew older, we added poetry. I only knew of one other family in real life who was memorizing poetry at that time, so it was refreshing to find your blog and to know that you were doing the same thing and seeing fruit come of it. You have continued to inspire me to add more to our MT, and I've done so not as a burden but with a sense of freedom..."little drops of water."

    I've been planning to write a blog post about MT, and I'll be sure to link to this post! :-) Thank you, again!

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  6. Thank you, Dear Lady!
    I will check out the links whenever I get a minute or two! We will start that poem today! Our first poem from 3 years ago was Robert Louis Stevenson' Whole Duty of Children.... A child should always say what is true, And speak when he is spoken to, And behave mannerly at table, At least as far as he is able! We refer to this OFTEN! What a gift.
    Thank you to the moon and back for this post!

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  7. Thank you for organizing your wealth of wisdom. So appreciated.

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  8. Thank you for the encouraging words and helpful tools!

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  9. This is the first time I've commented on a blog in years. However, I have mulled over morning time for weeks now and have a question for you that I can't answer myself. My children are 6 1/2, 4 1/2, just turned 2, and a newborn. The oldest three are boys. We currently do all Bible work (hymns, memory work, and study and reading) at breakfast with daddy. We rotate poetry, science readings (Burgess at the moment), art study, and composer study at lunch. I really enjoy the way we are currently doing this as they are so young we get great participation out of them doing these things at meals (and their father can be involved).

    However - I see the value of morning time as a way to incorporate things as they get older and don't always want to spend mealtime reading and discussing. Someday I would like to eat! My thinking is that I need to start a morning time if for nothing else to establish the habit and have the training done now so that when we hit Shakespeare, Plutarch, and the like they will be used to the process.

    So, for children of this age, what would you include? I have read all your posts over and over, but your children are much older than mine. Considering we hit so much at mealtimes, what would you focus on in morning times? We started today, and all I have so far is a good picture book and then a chapter of a read aloud. I would like to include memorization of poetry & important documents. Anything else? What did you do when your children were this age? Help!

    I really appreciate any insight you can give me into morning time with the younger years!

    Thanks - Tiffany

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  10. Tiffany,
    You might want to listen to my Circe Talk as I do talk about how we eased into MT over the years starting when my oldest was around 4 1/2. It really began when we started working on his Awana verses. Then I added in reading aloud.

    If you are doing those other things at mealtimes then I would do exactly what you said and just begin to build in a time in the morning. I would definitely start with poetry and reading aloud. I would keep my reading aloud geared to the oldest child. You can always read picture books to the others during the day.

    One other thing I would add in is some sort of singing like folk songs. That will set the tone to make it enjoyable.

    My MT developed naturally when my children were that age just as your mealtimes are developing. As I saw something I wanted to make sure they learned I added it in. Maybe you could work on the names of the Planets or Reading about one President a day. My own pet peeve is that I do not like lots of mindless memorization.

    When mine were that age we always had lots of interruptions :) Don't let that discourage you. Plod on.

    Also I would probably start having the oldest boy draw in a nature notebook. He can do that while you are reading. Pick books that he loves and it will not be a conflict. Little House in the Big Woods is a great read aloud for that age and a great book for encouraging nature study. He could draw while looking at drawings from other nature books.

    I hope that helps. I just told my dil today that while I know I did it, it looks exhausting when I see young moms. Except for reading aloud, keep everything else short.

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    1. Heading over to purchase your Circe talk now! Thanks for the advice & great ideas. I had completely forgotten about folk songs. Now to make some plans.

      By the way, I really appreciate your blog and all the wisdom you have to share. We educate leaning heavily on CM methods & ideals, but have never actually seen it in action in real life. Your blog helps immensely to see someone come out on the other side (with sons!) and to see it be successful. Too often CM is presented as a little fru-fru (sp?) and feminine. It is wonderful to see the methods aid in raising manly responsible men.

      Thanks for taking the time to answer my question and to develop your blog in general!

      -Tiffany

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  11. Okay, this is sort of off topic, BUT... I was looking up the poem and came across this little article about the author of Little grains of sand. She tells the story of the poem. Article is pdf scan of 1895 newspaper. Neat story! Living, I'd say. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F60716FF3A5911738DDDA80894D1405B8585F0D3

    Tell me if the link doesn't work.. oh, here's the one I clicked from:

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60716FF3A5911738DDDA80894D1405B8585F0D3

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    1. Wow, Amanda, how fun! And the "still vigorous at 72" made me laugh. How different things are nowadays.

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  12. Yes, aren't they different? My grandmother is "still vigorous" at 96! I thought it was great, and how it came to be through a shorthand/stenography class.. how interesting!

    And to echo the others, thank you so much for this post and the others you do on home education. I've really been looking at how I was attempting to do a morning basket/morning meeting... and reevaluating. I was treating it as a let's do this for a bit then get to our regular schedule. But recent posts from you have made me think that really, it could be the core of our work and our time to connect, and fit the things that we've been missing. I noticed you have mentioned at places morning time and then ambleside time.. did you sometimes pull some of your current ambleside selections to read in the morning with everyone, or is it always extra/other in the morning and the scheduled ambleside readings after along with math, etc... I was thinking of using some my 1st and 3rd graders Old Testament and History readings aloud in the morning together... along with memory work and prayer, etc.

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    1. Amanda,
      There were about 3 years when my homeschool hit its peak of 7 students at the same time that I had a regular MT geared to the older students and then an afternoon Ambleside Time with Benjamin and Emily and later Andrew. The little guys came to the regular MT but I let them muddle around with cars and legos etc. and then I geared Ambleside Time to reading aloud years 1 and 2 of Ambleside Online.

      One thing about hitting a peak....it's all down hill from there. Who knew after those intense years of homeschooling that very soon I would be down to only 2 boys?

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  13. Okay, I really need to listen to your Circe talk.. :) I wonder if they take Amex gift cards (Christmas present).. Well, my 1st and 3rd grader are my oldest. My son, 8 1/2 reads a ton on his own but I'm trying to reign in and read more aloud to keep on top of narrations. My first grade daughter is somewhat independent reader but not as voracious or confident. But I'm wondering if their grade level things should be read together or separately.. does it matter? My other kiddos are 4 1/2 year old twin boys, who I'm not really doing anything formal with - just starting a little basic phonics and they just started some speech for understandability.. and my 18 month old toddler boy who is everywhere all at once! We've really never had calm since the twins were born when my oldest was 4. So I love reading about your many boys and a CM/classical lifestyle! Yes, I'm trying to cherish this time though we are no where near our peak yet! :)

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