YMB #124 How Morning Time Works with Any Philosophy: A Conversation with Amy Milcic and Jessica Waldock

This is Your Morning Basket where we help you bring truth, goodness, and beauty to your homeschool day. Hi everyone and welcome to episode 124 of the Your Morning Basket podcast. I’m Pam Barnhill, your host and I’m so glad you’re joining me here today. Well, today’s conversation was so much fun.
I’m joined by Amy Milcic from Rock Your Homeschool and Jessica Waldock from the Waldock Way, all three of us homeschool in very different ways. We have different philosophies and different outlooks on homeschooling. We also have very different families, but we all do Morning Time and that’s what we are coming together to talk about today is how Morning Time can actually work no matter what kind of homeschool philosophy you choose, how big your family is, or what that family makeup is. And so this is a really fun conversation that I think you’re going to enjoy. 

Now, before we get on with that, I would like to invite you to come over to the website and download our free month of Morning Time sample Morning Time plans with the month of Morning Time plans. We have chosen the art, the poetry, the music, all the books and all the wonderful things for your Morning Time learning so you don’t have to. And we’ve put it together in a block or a loop schedule for you to follow. And we even give you access to it on our MorningTime app so you can see what it looks like to access your Morning Time on the app.
You can find all of that by coming to pambarnhill.com/month. And now on with the podcast.
Today I have two wonderful guests on the podcast, not just one. So give me a moment to introduce them. Jessica Waldock is a writer, photographer and homeschool mom of one and she lives in sunny florida. At thewaldockway.com, Jessica shares tips, tricks, inspiration, and unique resources that help ignite a love of learning in children that will last a lifetime. She inspires families to engage in homeschooling as a lifestyle where relationships come first and interest led learning prevails. She also has a fabulous collection of unit studies on her website and shares generously on her YouTube channel The Wallock Way.
And then my other guest is Amy Milcic. Amy is like the soccer mom supreme to five boys. She’s graduated one of them and she enjoys a relaxed, eclectic approach to homeschooling. She loves to use all that she has learned as a mental health therapist to make life and learning fun. She shares a bunch of free, easy to use and creative resources, tips and tools over at Rock Your Homeschool.
Okay, now I have to take a deep breath y’all because you’ve made me work hard to get both of you welcomed here. But welcome.
Thanks for having us. It’s so good to be here.
Yes, thank you. It’s so exciting.
Okay, so before we get started, what I want to do is like have everybody introduce themselves so we know who is talking so we can put a name with the voice. So if you guys listen to YMB you know that I’m Pam. And so Amy you go ahead.
Hey, I’m Amy. Go Rock Your Homeschool.
Hey, I’m Jessica from the Waldock Way.
Okay, so Jessica sounds a little more like me because we’re both from Florida. I’m originally from Florida, born not too far from where Jessica lives and then Amy sounds just a little more, you know, up country than we do.
Yeah, Jersey. There you go. Okay. Well what I really wanted this conversation to be about was the fact that we all do Morning Time in our home, but I think if we, if we were really honest in laying out how we homeschool, the ways that we homeschool would look very different from one another. And I really think it’s important to help people who are new to Morning Time or maybe who’ve been doing it a little while, understand that Morning Time really can work for any kind of philosophy. So Amy, we’re gonna let you start. Could you share a little bit about the approach that you use in your homeschool?
Sure. I would say I don’t have like one label. I’d say it’s relaxed with a flexible structure. We’re definitely eclectic. I pick resources based on what works best for that boy for that year. So really open to trying new things. Interest led for sure. And we do year-round homeschooling at this point, which has been really fun. We take a couple of weeks off here and there, but it kind of keeps the flow going, which helps our homeschool a lot. And I’d say the biggest thing is that we really focus on positive communication and relationships in our homeschool.
That’s so important to me, like with my experiences and then just watching my boys grow and learn together.
And how young is your youngest boy at this point?
My baby’s eight.
Okay, so eight to one who’s already graduated. And then how long have you been doing Morning Time?
Really since the beginning, but I didn’t even know it had a name then until like I found you. So we, we kind of just settled into this whole thing cuz when we first started homeschooling I thought you had to replicate public school at home and you know like 8:22 you get started and I’m like this is not working for us cuz I had a toddler hanging off of me and I was pregnant and I’m like, let’s just gather together and like look at these books and talk about them and listen to music. So probably from the beginning which I’d say was about when my oldest was in third grade, so.
Okay. Okay. And then Jessica, you’re kind of like, when I think about you two, you’re like the opposite of Amy because she has five boys and you have one girl. And tell us about your philosophy of homeschooling because it is also different from what Amy’s is and how long you’ve been doing Morning Time.
So I have one daughter who is at this time, 10 years old. We have been doing Morning Time since she was four. We started it kind of at the time it was more of a replication of calendar time that you see in like a typical preschool. And then it slowly evolved cuz it was kind of ridiculous for me to have this huge poster board with a calendar when I had one kid. So it evolved to like a piece of paper, and then it slowly kept evolving to things that fit in a basket versus, you know, these giant things. And it was just us sitting down reading books together or really just spending time together because I’m not a morning person, and so I needed a way to be able to kind of start our day slow but also intentional.
So I was spending time with her, but I didn’t really have to think about it. So we’ve been doing that for I would say six years now. But our philosophy, because I have one kid and because she really, really likes to deep dive into topics, if I had to pick one label, we would be unit study homeschoolers. So the majority of what we do surrounds a certain topic, and she normally dictates that topic based off of her interest.
Okay. You know, you’ve both mentioned interest-led homeschooling, and I would, even though I have more of a, I think a lot of people would define me as having more of a Classical and or Charlotte Mason bent. I think one of the places where I really differ from the Charlotte Mason philosophy is that I would call myself interest-led as well in that I ask my kids, what do you wanna study next year? And then you do that a little more often Jessica because you guys like you’ll watch her and if there’s a particular interest she has, you’ll make an entire study around it, right?
Yes. I’m literally a week away from finishing a study for her that will be starting in the new school year.
Right. So that’s how you do it.
But Amy, are you more like me, more like Jessica, or somewhere in between?
I’d say somewhere in between. And I just think that’s so interesting, like how we can all make that work for our different homeschools. But I would say that, and because I have the five boys, well now four that I’m homeschooling to balance out if we try to deep dive with all of their interests, you know, I don’t think I’d get any sleep. So we, we talk about it and we pick things like I let each person pick one thing that they might wanna study and we might focus on that in September and then another thing in October and sometimes just leaving it open and just saying, okay, what do we feel like doing this month or whatever.
But so I have like a loose structure, I would say, but I’d say probably in between both of you as far as the interest led.
So how does Morning Time work with your philosophy? So Amy, you’re a little more eclectic. I’m gonna choose what works for each child, and you’re not afraid to like pick up a textbook or do an online course or do some kind of like computer learning or something like that.
And then Jessica, you’re definitely like we’re interested led in unit study and really relaxed. So how does, what are some unique ways that Morning Time fits in with this philosophy that you have Jessica?
So I think for us, our Morning Basket looks different than most people’s because it typically is a theme, It fits in with our unit studies. So if for example, we’re learning about the human body, our Morning Basket is gonna be an extension of that. Most of our read-alouds, Mad Libs luckily come in tons of different topics. So games, I mean, we can theme it to match the topic that we’re already studying, so we can kind of make that an extension of that. So that’s the one thing that makes it different.
And then the one thing that makes it work is that I can find so many different resources to be able to cover so many different subjects or skills or concepts, if you will, in our Morning Time. And especially since it’s just the two of us, we can get a lot done in a short period of time in that 30 or 45 minutes together.
Oh, I love that.
Amy, how about you? I’d say that because I have different ages. So like right now, I have 8, 11, 13, and my 17-year-old kind of jumps in here and there, but he’s so busy with his own stuff. So I’d say like really right now we have three boys that I’m working with in Morning Time. I try to keep it that range of ages like where they all can participate, and we do bring in a lot of online things.
Like, I always have the Chromebook right there, so if we wanna jump on and look at something from National Geographic or whatever. But I’d say that like we kind of do a loop of things. I think you talk about that a lot. So like for example, this year we’re doing, we added geography in the loop. So Wednesdays and Fridays is when we, and right now we’re looking at Florida so it’s pretty fun. And so that helps us incorporate the different interest and ideas that the boys wanna study well covering different ages. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it totally makes sense. Well, let’s talk about that. What kind of subjects would you say you can cover during Morning Time or you know, and give me some examples of what you’ve done in the past?
Oh gosh. Like for us, we’ve covered a bunch of different things. Like last year we were really into growth mindset. That’s something I’m really big on. So we incorporated a lot of different books and online resources for that and just talking about it. So that was something pretty unique for us. And I don’t know if other homeschoolers did that, but that’s just something that we wanted to do. Now this year, we were using BrainPOP homeschool, which has been super cool because there’s like so many different topics. Plus it’s online, so I just pop it open and I’m like, all right, I can kind of sit back and enjoy it with them, which is nice. But I think there’s like, we do current events, we do CNN 10, the boys love Carl, they can’t wait for Monday cuz it’s gonna start back up again.
Oh good. Because we were worried because we were looking for that. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so So you guys watch it too? Oh that’s cool.
Totally, yeah, Yeah.
So yeah, and there’s just a few of the things that we’ve done. We, still do calendar time. Jessica had mentioned that, and I know my boys are older, but we just find different things like we’ll do Roman numerals with calendar time, or like the temperature and like, you know, varying like Celsius and Fahrenheit and that type of thing. So just a bunch of different stuff, really.
So what I, what I love about what you’re saying is you know you’re doing the BrainPOP this year, which if you’re not familiar with BrainPOP it’s like there are these short little videos, there’s like a boy in a robot or a girl in a robot or something, and they talk about these various topics, and then there are quizzes and things like that. And so that’s something Amy’s able to pull up in her Morning Time, and I’m making assumptions now because I’ve never been in your Morning Time but I’m assuming you pull it up, y’all watch it together and then you discuss it probably.
Yes.
And yeah and so you’re able to bring in kind of that video element. Whereas in my Morning Time it is very much, you know, we do watch CNN10 and I have a great interview with Carl that your boys would probably really enjoy. He was on the podcast a couple years ago, was so much fun. But that’s the only video we do. And other than that we are reading or reciting poetry or praying or singing and so, you know, I love the fact that we are doing kind of a lot of these what people think of as traditional Morning Time kinds of things. But you’re like, oh we’re over here like looking up stuff on National Geographic, or we’re watching BrainPOP or you know, doing some other video elements. I’ve got my Chromebook right here. Yeah.
And then Jessica, I have a feeling yours is a little more hands on.
Mine does not include any screens because I save my screen time for when I need a break as a mom. When you homeschool an only child, you that is like treasured alone time. So I’m like no screens whatsoever.
Mainly because that’s time when I set aside for it to be me and her. So we are reading, we are playing a game, we’re doing puzzles, we’re doing Mad Libs. That is kind of our connection time. And so all of our screens podcast, audiobooks, which we totally incorporate just not during our Morning Time cuz that’s my time to be like you said, hands-on one-on-one with her. So our Morning Time includes a lot of games. It includes anything she thinks is fun Mad Libs with all of the potty humor. I know I’m not alone in that one. And then I, because math is not her favorite thing, I will find any way to sneak it in to what we’re doing. So Bedtime Math books, Life of Fred, any of those kinds of fun kind of hands on type of math that I can sneak into our Morning Time, especially if it matches the theme that we’re going with at that time, I’m all for that.
Oh I love that. And I love, I mean just like three very distinct visions of what a Morning Time can look like and it, it works. It works for all of us and I think the key element that is similar to in all of our Morning Times and you guys can like tell me, you know, tell me what you think. But I think it’s the fact that we’re sitting there with our kids and everybody’s learning together, whether that be one child or you know, three or four.
Absolutely. Yeah.
And I think also we are prioritizing whatever’s important to us in our home schools and our families.
Yeah. And how we can get our kids engaged in it. That’s for me the biggest thing. Like how I can get them excited about learning and wanting to be there with me and interacting and interacting with each other is huge. And like that’s why I said like even though my 17-year-old is involved, like he has some online college classes and stuff, he’ll be sitting right there and he pipes in, you know, cuz he doesn’t wanna miss it but you know, he’s older and all that stuff. So I love that. And even my oldest who’s out at work all day, he’ll come home and be like, what’d you guys do this in Morning Time?
So like the voice will be like, we did this, we did that because he kind of misses it too. And I love that as well that like getting that feedback from him of wanting to know what we’re doing in our homeschool and you know, seeing how it’s going.
Yeah, I, I think that just goes back to this idea that what makes Morning Time unique is not even the subjects that you do in Morning Time. I mean you could do so many different subjects and Jessica does games and you know, we do reading and you could do video subjects and there’s just so many different things you could do. But the thing that makes it unique is the relationships that you’re building. Whether that be a one-on-one relationship with your child or relationships in the whole family as well. And so that kind of touches on which was my next question. Why do we think Morning Time is a great addition to homeschooling regardless of your educational philosophy. So anything else? I mean could you imagine not doing Morning Time?
No. For us it’s just been such a great way to like come together, and Jessica had mentioned earlier like she’s not a morning person and we don’t necessarily like always do Morning Time in the morning because we have a crazy schedule.
So sometimes it doesn’t start until like 12:30 or 1 o’clock because that’s when we can all come together. But like that’s for us, the biggest part of it is that we’re all together. That’s what I love about it.
Do your kids sometimes do their other work before Morning Time?
Yes. We’re big on like checklists. I know not everybody likes checklist but my boys like having their clipboard and a checklist of like what they’re expected to do. So like my, my baby, my eight year old, he will go through that thing and get it done. He loves to have that. The other ones not always but so they will do some independent work before we even get started with Morning Time and that’s just kind of how it’s flowed for us. You know
Then it’s worked for you. And I know Jessica, you’re the only mom I have ever heard of who’s like, my mornings are horrible so I have to do Morning Time.
Well and what’s funny is she just said her Morning Basket doesn’t start until 12 or one and ours doesn’t either but not because we did anything beforehand, just because that’s when our day starts. We are not, we’re not morning people. And it’s, I know that sounds backwards to think I have to do Morning Time because I’m not a morning person, but I can have the basket full of stuff set up beforehand, and I could have done it when my brain was working, and it was on fire, and then all I have to do in my pajamas is sit on the couch and pull something outta the basket one at a time.
Like my brain doesn’t have to work to read, “okay, give me a pronoun next,” or my brain doesn’t have to work to just open and read a book aloud. Like I can sit there and watch her do a puzzle while I’m reading, and I can still be slowly waking up. I’m still filling her bucket; I’m not griping at her because she’s trying to make me be human first thing in the morning and it just, for us, it works better. And that’s actually one of the things I hear often is I’m not a morning person so Morning Time won’t work for me. But I think it’s actually the opposite of that. If, if you would just give it a chance, I think you would realize it would totally work for you.
Yeah. Okay. Talk to me about some of your favorite things that you’ve ever done in Morning Time before.
Some examples of something you’ve done that you really loved.
We love trivia. We do, we incorporate that a lot into the homeschool. My boys just love random facts so we have a lot of those different card boxes and stuff, and that’s something that we always look forward to and then it kind of leads us down rabbit trails or deep dives based on that. So that’s been one of our favorite things, I’d say.
So like the MindWare trivia or the Professor Noggin.
Professor Noggin is one of our favorites when we put those in our Morning Time, our goal is, cuz they have the easy and the hard that by the end of the Morning Time, like when we’ve changed themes, we can answer all the hard questions, not just be easy anymore.
Yeah. So that’s a good one.
Yeah that’s a big one here too.
How long, how long do you stick with the theme Jessica?
Oh, when Emily was younger, it was monthly because her attention span was shorter. So I would say from the time she was like, preschool until about the end of second, beginning of third grade, we changed themes monthly, and then once she hit about third grade, her attention span was longer, and she wanted to dive even deeper and linger a little more. So now it’s closer to quarterly, about every two to three months, kind of when she’s done with it. I can tell when she’s not excited anymore it’s like, okay, time to move on.
And what about some of your favorites from Morning Time?
So I think some of our favorites are definitely Mad Libs. That’s one that is always a win here and Emily will like kind of pitch a fit if I don’t pull it outta the basket. And then any quick card game is my favorite. So like the Professor Noggin trivia games, the brain training games like Spot it. Spot, it has tons of themes so they will fit in with a lot of our topics when we do them.
Those are always in there. And then we really like puzzles cuz they’re quiet, and she can do them while I’m reading aloud, and that’s not loud or distracting for me.
So yeah. That’s awesome. And Mad Libs, I will tell you that my Madlib kid eventually grew out of it so he’s 12 now, and I would say that last year was probably the first year that we didn’t have to do Mad Libs every day to keep him happy.
Well, then I think I’m gonna cherish the next two years I have because I think there is gonna come a time when I’m gonna miss that potty humor.
So yeah, that maybe, maybe you will. I don’t miss it yet.
So Pam, what are a few of your favorite, you’ve been doing Morning Time, probably longer than both of us. So what are a few of your favorite resources that you’ve used?
So I mean my, one of my favorite things to do, we do love CNN 10, like Amy and them and we love Carl and the Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization from IEW has just been one, it’s one of my favorites and I would think it’s one of my kids’ favorites too because they just roll right back into it. They never complain about it. We always do it. And so that’s a favorite. And then just really good books, whatever really good book we’re reading, that’s when we do our read-alouds because I have tried to schedule, you know, obviously, when they were little we always read before bedtime, right?
But then as they grew up and started getting older and now they have jobs, I mean there are very few nights when we are all even here at the house together because they’ve gone off in so many different directions with jobs and activities and it’s just almost impossible for us to read before bed. And so if we get read aloud done, it is being done in Morning Time.
That’s how our Morning Time has evolved as well. We’ve also incorporated read-alouds or audiobooks are really big cuz sometimes I’m still up like getting my coffee or fixing a snack for my little hobbit or whatever. And so I, I really find that like having an audiobook and having that time, like right now I think we’re working on the Stone Heart trilogy. Yeah we are. And so we’re just, it is just so helpful to have that to turn on and listen to and then talk about afterwards because night times are usually crazy here. Like we have a couple working out activities or practices or games and it’s like one way at least we know that we’re getting that together, and we can talk about it.
So Yeah,
That’s happened with us too.
So have you ever put anything really kind of academic or schooly in your Morning Time
This year, we’re actually, the boys wanted to do the periodic table of elements. So we’re gonna be looking at probably like, I’d say two or three elements per week and like really looking at them, you know and like they’re making these big posters and we’re looking at like what the different elements are gonna do, like what they do in the world and everything. And I think that’s pretty academic cuz I’m not a chemistry person so I’m like wow this is so we’re gonna do a lot of fun stuff with it. But yeah, so that’s something that we’re gonna be doing.
It’s kind of an academic topic for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Jessica, what’s the most academic thing you’ve ever done in your Morning Time?
Oh, I think probably the most academic thing we’ve ever done because it’s mostly the only thing we do for history is that we read the Who Was books cuz those are some of Emily’s favorites for our history. And then we do our, Who Was unit studies afterwards. So she typically colors the coloring page while I read it aloud during Morning Time and then later on in the day she completes like the unit study pages for that.
Okay. So am I the only person who’s ever done grammar and like sentence diagramming and Morning Time?
Oh we have, we do. We’ve done Winston Grammar. That’s really worked well with my boys cause they like the cards and like moving it around. So yes, we have done grammar and in fact we wrapped up like one thing last year and they were just asking me about that. They’re like, When are we gonna do that again? And I’m like, you want to do grammar?
So yeah, I like we did, We did the first language lessons when Emily was younger because the majority of that was just kind of read aloud and recite back to you. So we did the first or second book in like preschool in kindergarten. That’s all we did for grammar. And that was, it was fine. I mean we didn’t stop it for any particular reason. We just finished the book and that was it.
That was it. Yeah, we’ve also done foreign language in Morning Time. We did Latin when the kids were little.
Anybody else? No, I tried here and there. It never really stuck. We tried French, we tried Greek, they wanted one but I don’t know, I just never, never quite stuck until they got older, you know? But that was always like a dream for me. But Yeah.
Yeah, me too. And it’s like, like if they really don’t have this burning interest to keep speaking it and wanna speak it back with you, like it, it, it’s a struggle, right? It’s like you’re driving that train so Jessica, you’re shaking your head.
Because I think that foreign language might just be a little too much for my still half-asleep brain. I think that’s a stretch. I think that would be the one thing that would make me think too hard during Morning Time.
You don’t wanna do Latin declentions during Morning Time?
I don’t. I don’t think so. I think I’ll pass maybe at like five o’clock in the evening. I would totally be on it but not at, nope, that’s too much for me.
And then you play a lot of math games in Morning Time. I have always made an attempt to bring beautiful math into my Morning Time because I’m the kind of person I was never a big math person but I know that there’s beauty in mathematics that I struggle accessing, you know? But I want to, you know, and this is the other thing about Morning Time for me, which is such a big huge thing about just the whole concept of Morning Time is this is the place where I get to learn alongside my kids, right? I’m not necessarily the teacher; I’m learning something with them and so that’s the place where I really try to put beautiful things in math so I can access those things for myself as well, you know? And so we have done Bedtime Math books which are a lot of fun. But then we’ve also done, you know, some math poetry and Life of Fred and just, you know, really kind of tried to dive into some more abstract math ideas like tessellations or the Golden Mean or things like that. Any other math for you guys?
We love Life of Fred. So the, we’ve done that, we haven’t done that as part of our Morning Time. That was kind of like the voiced on their own I think because the different ages for us math is, we haven’t really done too much in our Morning Time with that just cause they were at such different levels. But yeah, I’d love to hear what Jessica does with Emily.
So there is a Math Journey Through, it’s a book series and their theme. So there’s like a math journey through the animal kingdom or a math journey through the human body. So they fit into our topical Morning Baskets while still being kind of that fun, beautiful real-life math.
I love that. Okay, so I have a question for you, specifically Jessica. If you have one child and you’re doing this unit and you’re doing all this stuff in Morning Time, what is the difference between the stuff you’re doing with your one child for the unit in Morning Time and the other stuff she does? Does like is all of your unit study stuff done in Morning Time?
Unit study stuff that requires writing is done during table time. There is absolutely no writing ever required during our Morning Time, with the exception of maybe like coloring a picture because she, well when she was younger she doesn’t find it nearly as painful now. But when Emily was younger she found pencil in hand, like physically painful. So I immediately was like, there will never be a pencil required during our Morning Time because that’s supposed to be this beautiful time for us to connect with each other.
And I didn’t want that upset, you know, the tears or the upsetting part of it. So anything that we do that involves like the reading or the games or the fun, the connection part of it is Morning Time, anything that requires writing or something that mom might have to be a little bit, you know, pushy or forceful that’s table time and later in the day.
Okay. No, that’s a great distinction. But I have a feeling that that was a question that you know, people would be asking.
And then Amy, since you have older kids, have you ever been able to work into like their transcript or anything or their hours or anything like that, some of the stuff that you have done in Morning Time?
Oh, that’s a good question. I’d have to go back and look through their portfolios and stuff. I haven’t necessarily maybe pulled out some things that we were reading and then if they did some writing along with that. Cause I do try to make it towards their level once Morning Time is done. So we might take a concept that they, we were all talking about, and I would give them a writing prompt on it, and then I would include it.
But I, I wouldn’t say that we did anything like transcript wise. Cause once they hit high school age, that’s when I found that they were just kind of popping in here and there with our Morning Time. So…
Yeah. Yeah, this is my new, this is my new journey is like how to figure out, you know, because I have,
I only have the three and they are 17, 15, and 12. And so, you know, the 12-year-old’s kind of a little of, you know, a little anomaly over here in a lot of different ways. And I, you know, I’m really gearing a lot of things right in towards that 17 and 15-year-old. And that’s my new thing is to see like, you know, how do we make this count? How do we make this count towards.
Oh, I think you definitely can, like, I think one thing that we looked into and I just never kind of followed through with it was like music appreciation. I’m not sure like what’s required in your state, but there were certain things that I, I definitely could have tweaked that could have been applied to their transcript.
But Yeah, just careful Fulfilled that.
And Amy’s in Pennsylvania if you’re listening, so now they know where to come find you, Amy,
Please come find me.
But I’m in Florida or I’m in Alabama, not in Florida, I’m in Alabama. And so like our requirements are a lot less stringent than yours. And so I think I would be able to utilize a lot of that stuff.
Oh, I just did think of one thing. We, we are required to do fire safety so every year all the way through senior. So that is something that we did in our Morning Time. So we would read the books when we watch videos, and we, we talk about it and write about it, and that could also get put on the transcript as part of their health and wellness.
So I love it. I love it.
So what tips do you have for somebody who, you know, maybe they’ve never really considered Morning Time before because they’re like, Oh, I’m not a Charlotte Mason homeschooler or I’m not a classical homeschooler and that really seems to be who, who’s doing the Morning Time thing and now after this conversation they’re thinking, oh, you know, maybe it’s something I could do. What, what kind of advice would you give them?
I would say the first thing would be to start small and then build up. Like if you ever go look at somebody’s Morning Basket, it can be, or Morning Time even. It can look daunting. And then the number one question I always get is, how long does it take you to do all this? Because they can’t fathom the idea of adding in even 30 to 45 minutes. Like I can’t handle that. So it can just be like a read-aloud, just sit down in the morning with a book, one book for 10 minutes. It can be, you know, small and easy and simple and then you can build from there.
I would venture to say that’s probably what all three of us did. None of our Morning Times started out looking like what they look like now.
Yeah. And you know that, it’s funny you should say that because you know, I never think of Morning Time as something I’m adding on to school. It is, it happens to be the time that we’re all learning together, you know, but it, I see it as the way that I make schooling more efficient and more enjoyable for my family is because we’re all coming together and doing it together. But it’s not stuff that I’m adding on extra, it’s stuff that I would wanna do for school anyway. So for me it’s not an add-on, it’s an efficiency technique maybe.
See, and for me sometimes I don’t even see it as a schooling extra. I see it as a relationship and a foundation of our whole day. I mean, yes we do things that happen to be academic and educational, but I would play games with her or read to her no matter what. And it just happens to make our day start easier, better, and you know, we’re connecting and it makes, it makes the entire day go more smoothly when we don’t do Morning Time, the same amount of schoolwork later in the day takes us three times as long because we have it filled our buckets first are connected first and we didn’t lay that foundation. If we lay that foundation, everything else goes so much quicker. So again, even if you were adding more time, I feel like it makes everything else go so much faster and smoother that you’re saving yourself time. Like you said, it ends up being more efficient in the end.
Absolutely. Like for us it’s a type of structure but like flexible and even like I said, we, we year-round homeschool and we do take off some time, but the boys will ask, can we see, we always start off with this, we do the Pledge of Allegiance every day. They like to do that. We say a prayer, and then we do a little bit of calendar. We listen to, if Carl’s on, you know, we tune in and we just have like our little things that we do. And even if we don’t have school that day, the boys ask to do it because they enjoy it and that time together. So like Jessica said, it’s like a relationship, and it’s like this great way to start the day together, which has been so powerful for us.
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s what I would tell a mom who is interested in the idea, but she’s like, you know, how do you find time to do this? And I think the value of it just becomes so great and what it does for, you know, your whole homeschool that it doesn’t seem like you’re really adding on extra things.
I agree.
Yeah. But it’s not, I will say like convincing the 13 year old boy of that it, you know, when he is never done it before that, you know, there’s a little bit of finesse there, right?
Right. Cause weve done it for years, so like my, my little guys don’t know anything different. If I had to get started now, it would take, I would just say don’t overthink it. Pick one thing, focus on that if you need to tweak it a little bit, and just see where it goes. And, and then if you’re, you know, getting started with a 13-year-old, I’d say talk to them about it. Like what do you think we could do it this time and how would this help, you know, get our day started. Well because, you know, 13 year old boys are woo. So you, you, you wanna, you know, connect with them and, and work with them and help them take ownership as well.
Or like Pam, you said that you love certain things about your Morning Time. So I think maybe if they’re older, you meet them in the middle, like I’m gonna add one thing for me, but then I’m gonna add one thing for them. Like something to bring you both to the time together.
Yeah, I always add something for them first before I add the something for me and that, Yeah. So we always do like, you know, something for your toughest kid. There’s always a tough nut to crack and then, you know, go down and you’re poor, you know, 16, 17-year-old girl, she’s the last one because are the five year old. Yeah. Because she’s the easiest and, and then from there, you know, you can add something for you finally. For sure. So…
All right, well ladies, thank you so much for joining me here today. I think this was a fabulous conversation and so much to be got out of this. So I’m gonna give you each a turn.
Tell everybody where they can find you online. Jessica?
You can find me at thewaldockway.com. I’m also on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
And you have something new and exciting coming out this fall, don’t you?
I do. I have a brand new Greek mythology Percy Jackson-based study that will be out probably by the time they’re listed on this. But you’re right, it’ll be out this fall.
Awesome, Awesome. And Amy?
I’m over at Rock Your Homeschool and you can occasionally find me on Instagram and Facebook cuz I have not been good with social media cuz I needed that detox. But you can find me at Rock Your Homeschool, that’s for sure.
Awesome. At RockYourHomeschool.com.
All right, well, thank you ladies. I really appreciate it and keep enjoying your Morning Time. It’s just so much fun to talk to moms who are getting so much value out of it.
Oh, thanks Pam. It was great being here.
Thanks for having us.
And there you have it. Now, if you would like links to any of the resources that Amy, Jessica, and I chatted about today, you can find them on the show notes for this episode of the podcast. That’s at pambarnhill.com/ymb124. Also, I’d just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to everyone who has left a rating or review for the Your Morning Basket podcast in your favorite podcast player.
The ratings and reviews that you leave help us get word out about the podcast to new listeners. And we really do appreciate you taking the time to do that. I will be back again in a couple of weeks with another great Morning Basket interview. Until then, keep seeking truth, goodness, and beauty in your homeschool day.