YMB #39 Building Relationships with Circle Time: A Conversation with Kendra Fletcher

This is your morning basket, where we help you bring truth, goodness, and beauty to your homeschool day.

Hi everyone. And welcome to episode 39 of the, your morning basket podcast. I’m Pam Barnhill, your host, and I am so happy. You are joining me here today. Well, you guys have heard me interview Cindy Rollins.

I often call her the mama of morning time, and you’ve also heard me interview Jennifer Mackintosh, who was doing her own morning time at the same time that Cindy was kind of independently. Those two ladies were in the Southeast of our country, but way on the West coast. At the very same time, there was another lady who was starting her own kind of independent practice of morning time.

And that was Kendra Fletcher long before the days of blogs and things of that. She started doing what she called circle time in her home with her eight children. There weren’t eight of them then, but they eventually came along. And so when you have a practice that is as great and wonderful as circle time or morning time, people just start doing it independently everywhere. We’ve heard that from moms, we’ve been doing this for years and never knew it had a name kendra was actually one of the very first people to write about the practice in a book. She called circle time plan, the best part of your day. And so we are honored to have Kendra Fletcher joining us here on the podcast. I have to tell you, I read that book many years ago, myself, and she is going to talk to us all about the history of circle time in her family. And we’re so excited that she’s joining us. We’ll get on with that podcast right after this word from our sponsor.

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Kendra Fletcher is a mom of eight who homeschools in sunny, California. She and her husband Fletch were co-hosts of the popular homeschooling in real life podcast and blog, where they informed and encouraged Christian homeschool families. And you can still find those episodes in iTunes.

Kendra is a long time encourager of homeschool moms from her stints on the speaking circuit to her books, which include Lost and Found: Losing Religion, Finding Grace, Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling Older Kids With Success While Loving the Little Ones at Your Feet and Circle Time: Plan the Best Part of Your Day. Kendra circle time book has been a help and inspiration to so many moms trying to get their own Morning Times off the ground. And she joins us today to tell her circle time story Kendra, welcome to the program.

Thank you, Pam. I’m so glad that you are perpetuating the Morning Time, circle time group learning time. I love it.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s been such a blessing and I will tell you, my oldest is 12 and I think I read your book when she was four or five

Oh my goodness. I love that. That’s great. It’s been out a little while and has been helping mamas for a long time. And I do want to make the point that when we talk about circle time, we’re using the term completely interchangeably with morning time. It’s the, it’s the same thing.

Absolutely. And I tell moms all the time, cause you know, I’m sure you’ve had this experience too, where moms with older kids will say, if I say circle time, they will want nothing to do with it. Or if I say morning time, so call it whatever you want, whatever works really doesn’t matter.

Yeah. And we’ve had some people suggest some really great names. Jen Dunlap calls it power hour.

That’s great. Which I absolutely love, but we’ve had people call it like symposium. Some lady told me she called it the miracle hour in her house. So Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Call it whatever You want.

Well, tell us the story of circle time at your house. What was it that motivated you to start implementing this circle time?

Well, I remember back when I had, I think just my three boys who were each spaced about two years apart. So I’m thinking, well, I know when the fourth child was born, my first daughter, those boys were six, four and two. And so, you know, here I have this newborn and I’ve got this first grader and a,

a little emerging know almost kindergartener and all of that. And so kind of in those early years, I remember thinking, I don’t want to just push my toddlers, preschoolers babies away and say, Hey, you know what, I’m just going to put this video on for you. Or I just want you to keep busy or, you know, don’t bother us.

We are doing school. So yes, we watch videos and all those things, you know, and, but I just didn’t want this mindset of pushing little ones away so that we could, you know, do what we were doing. So I just began to really think about that. And I had heard a friend talking about this idea of circle time in her preschool,

you know, regular, I think it was a private preschool and just that they would gather together in the morning as a group and sing some songs and do some learning activities. And I thought, you know, that is so doable in the homeschool setting. And so it really just began there. It was just a matter of like the here’s the babies she’s right with me, probably nursing. Here’s the two-year-old I’m going to give him crayons and a piece of paper and probably strap him in, which is what I often do with those little guys, you know, make sure they’re strapped in, can’t go anywhere and maybe give them a little bowl of Cheerios. And then we’re going to do some things that all of us can enjoy together. And it, it started at that. It was just a practical way to keep everybody together. So that’s really how it started for me.

About how long would a circle time last for you guys?

I think back then with that age group, probably 15 minutes, but the really beautiful thing that I’ve found and I’m sure you have too in your morning time, is that it can really morph into whatever it needs to be in whatever season you’re in. So there was a time when I had the three older boys and then we had three girls. Well, my girls were very different from my boys. They could sit, they could pay attention. They wanted in, on projects. And I remember circle time at that time being two hours.

So we would do art projects. We would memorize verses. We would write letters to our compassion children. We would, you know, all of those kinds of things. And my girls were all in, even as preschoolers. So that was beautiful. And I guess I kind of had this thought that that’s the way it would always be from now on.

But then I had these two little boys at the end that were 14 months apart from each other. And one had some major medical issues and suddenly circle time was I kid you not five minutes. I mean, it was like, let’s pray together. Let’s maybe sing a song together. And then it was, that was it, it was chaos management and I had to learn to be okay with that.

Right. And then by that time, you’re older too. Or your older two or three had gotten to the teen years. Right? They had, yeah, when we had those little boys, our oldest were, you know, 13, 14, 15 in there and I just gave them an open invitation, Hey, if you guys want to join us for circle time, we always did it after or do it still after breakfast. And so I would just say, if you want to be part of it, and nine times out of 10, they wanted to pray with us. You know, they wanted to read scripture with us or whatever we were doing, but then they tended to drift off and go start their schoolwork because they to get it done. So that was, that was just a freedom I gave them. And I think that ended up being a really healthy thing for them and our relationship.

Right, right. So you’ve always kind of geared it towards that upper elementary to lower, you know, on down to what, you know, what those preschoolers could enjoy as well.

For the most part, yes. And then, you know, it’s also a really great opportunity to stretch those younger ones, but also to kind of teach a little bit of patience to the older one. So there’s some character stuff in there too, you know what I mean?

Yeah. I have heard more than one mom of many, you know, and of course that means there’s typically a pretty wide age range say that, you know, there’s a lot of character development involved for the older kids and then they in turn do such a great job of turning around and passing it down to the younger kids too. Absolutely. And I see such beautiful things in my older kids, whether they recognize it or not. When we have two who are married now, half of our kids are now legally adults, which is just crazy to me, but they will, they’ll just allow any little one to come sit on their lap. You know, at church, in somebody else’s home, they don’t even bat an eyelash and that little one’s right next to them. And they just know how to just have a conversation with somebody who’s three years old. I think, you know, or they they’ve got the patients to sort of deal with little kid issues and it’s not, it’s just second nature to them. They don’t even think about it, but I observe it. And I think, you know, I think so much of that was born out of our early years or just their life time of being in a circle time environment where we were together.

And we were going to do things as a family and, you know, as a group. So I really appreciate those opportunities for the older ones that I don’t, again, I don’t know that they necessarily realize happened in those moments.

Right. Well, let’s talk, you hinted a little bit about some of the things that you did during, I always liked to call the upper elementary stage kind of the golden years of morning time, because everybody’s ready to sit still. And you were talking about even when your girls were younger, they were ready to sit still in participate and then they didn’t have to be done and go on and get finished. And so you kind of that long stretch of time. So what were some of the things that you did?

We have done so many things over the years. I’m I did mention writing letters to our compassion children. We’ve written, thank you notes in that time, you know, every January after Christmas, okay guys, I would pass out Christmas, thank you notes. And we would just sit and work on them, which is great because you can put music on in the background and everybody’s just doing what they need to do and they can help each other.

And I’m sitting there so I can help them spell a word or whatever they need in that. So that’s some of the stuff we’ve done. We’ve done art programs, we’ve done music, appreciation, reading aloud, obviously, you know, that’s such a great sort of the, for me, it was sort of the central thing. In circle time, we’ve memorized all kinds of things. We landmark cards that we bought from national geographic and I see them in the target dollar spot every year, and they’re just famous landmarks around the world. And we’ve had contests of memorizing those and memorizing verses and passages. We took the book of John one year and we each took turns reading probably five verses each. And we just went around the table and read through the book of John.

And every day we would illustrate whatever chunk it was. We had read that day and my kids ended up with these really great binders of an entire illustrated book of the Bible. And it was really fun. And we look back and I have them all and we look back on them and we giggle. I mean, I think my now 19 year old at that time was in the stage where everything was blown up.

So, you know, I think Paul and Silas were probably blowing up the jail and, you know, that was Acts. We did Acts. So that’s why remembering that. But you know, I mean, like, they’re just really funny when you look back on these little, the way things were illustrated and I’m a horrible artist, but I did it with them and they got a kick out of that too.

So, you know, just some fun things like that we did at the Notgrass Draw to Learn the life of Jesus. Draw to Learn the book of Proverbs. Those were huge favorites. And anytime I pull those out, my kids love them. So those are some of the things we’ve done this year. I can tell you, I will only have a fifth grader with me every day in our circle time, which is crazy odd, but we will still do it. I will do things with him like current events that some of the things we’ve done in the past, the history of the day, you can look that up on his, the history channel. And there’s always like, you know, what, what events occurred in history that day? And we’ll watch the little video of what was going on in history on the day we’re gathered

This year, I’m doing 10 things that you need to know today from the magazine The Week, which is just a new source magazine so that I can get him starting to think about world events and current events. So we’ll do that. I often will read from World Magazine. We love this year. We’re going to start at the beginning of the Apologia a series, their Bible study series. So we’re going to do a, Who is God? We’ve done, Who is My Neighbor in the past. Those are perfect books for a circle time environment. So we’re going to work on that this year, the discovering great artists series, you know, Classical Conversations also has those really great flashcards. And we’re not even using Classical Conversations this year, but you can buy their stuff and they have wonderful, wonderful cards. So we’ve used, we’re going to be doing, I think they’re a biology cards this year and just going through those flashcards and discussing them and you know, doing some illustrations and stuff like that. So those are the things that are on the top of my head, but that’s what we’ve got.

Okay. So I’m so glad that you brought this up and I really want to pick your brain about this for a few minutes, because we get asked this question often by moms who are homeschooling and only child, how are you going to set apart circle time from the rest of the school day? Are you even going to worry about setting apart circle time from the rest of the school with just one child?

Yeah, that’s it’s so it’s, it’s like a whole new frontier for this mom of so many. We will do it right after breakfast and it will be a definite, you know, this is our time together and I may call it something different for this kid. I may let him name it. He gets that privilege, I guess is the last one in the bunch, but yeah, we’ll have breakfast, we’ll have him do his morning chores and then we’ll sit down together and have some prayer time just together. And this is a really kind of a sweet thing this year. And I think those with one child, you know, be thinking about what an amazing opportunity it is that you have that time to really pour into one child.

I mean, this is, this to me, feels like luxury after really having to forge relationship with so many at one time. But my little guy who’s going to be doing this with me this year. He is just 14 months older than a special needs brother. And that special needs brother just sucks attention away from everybody else. And so he really carries the brunt of all of that activity.

And so to be able to really focus on that fifth grader and say to keep our circle time, so geared toward him and where he is in his life and the kind of ministry that I feel I need to have to him this year. It’s just such a great opportunity. So if you can think about it in that way, with that one, that only child, you know, what is this child’s bent? What are his or hers strengths and weaknesses? How can I really capitalize on this time together?

Right. And it looks different because he will go off then and do some independent work on his own too. That’s right. So, I mean, we’re not, this is not the time we’re doing math. This is not the time I’m teaching history.

It can be, I have used circle time as history in the past, but for him it will be really all of those subjects that I don’t know where else to put them. And that’s a lot of how my circle time developed over the years too, you know, I want to do this with my children. I want to teach them table manners.

I want to teach them, you know, these things, but where do I put that in my school day? And so circle time really becomes a beautiful catchall. And so if you can think of it in terms of that too, like, Oh goodness, we really want to learn, you know, all the plagues or we want to, in the order,

we did that for a week. You know, we want to learn the 10 commandments or the Lord’s prayer or all of those things. And I just think, I don’t necessarily know where to put those things. We used to have these great dinner time hours, you know, where we could do this. But as our kids got older and people had different schedules and jobs and, or dinner time for us just became crazy loud because there were so many of us, then it just wasn’t the perfect time to do that stuff anymore. And circle time became the really, really great hour where we could work on memory work and stuff like that.

Yeah. Like your address and your phone number

That’s right. That’s a perfect time

When your kid gets to be seven and you realize they don’t know that.

Yeah. Isn’t that funny as homeschoolers? That same thing. My kids couldn’t tie shoes, I think a lot than other Yeah.

Because they never wear them. So all that is funny. And you mentioned at one point in there, you said, I sat and did it with them. So how is your role in circle time been as the mom? What kind of role do you play?

Yeah, I, that is, I’m glad you pointed that out because this is that time where it’s all us together. And so I’m part of that. And I wanted them to remember me as part of that and not me as correcting math or teaching a boring lesson, you know, or something that they were like,

Oh, we gotta, we gotta sludge through this grammar lesson. I wanted it to be something that we were all sort of ignited over, you know, something that was exciting to most of us, at least. And you know, this is where I think mom’s interests can really play in as well. If there was just something I want my kids to learn, this is the time I’ll do it. And so I’ve introduced them to music I love, or, you know, sports that I love or, you know, whatever those things are. What is it, mom that you really love? And I think in particular as homeschooling moms, we can put what we love aside, but think about those things that really light a fire for you, or get you excited, circle times the perfect time to teach your kids what it is that you love as well.

I know a mom, you know, years before anybody was homeschooling back in the seventies before, you know, every, everybody knew what homeschooling was. She had six kids, they owned the local hobby store in our town. So they were kind of an artsy family.

And every day after school, she would gather those six kids plop them down at the table. She was an artist herself and she would just start teaching them to draw. And four of those six kids make their living as an artist to this day. And I mean, like I just find that. So fascinating. One is a children’s book Illustrator one is an illustrator for field guides. So in his specialty is birds. So if you have a field guide with drawn beautiful pictures of birds, he likely did them because he does those. He’s like world renowned expert in that. And this mom just said, I love art. I want to teach my children art. And he, the, the bird illustrator actually got to spend some time with him recently. And he said, I think that’s how my mom kept her sanity.

And so, you know, I thought that was such a great story in such a great illustration for those of us with, you know, even one child, it doesn’t matter how many, you know, sometimes mom just needs this little glimpse of who am I, what do I love and how can I pour that love for this thing out on my kids as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And so circle, time’s a good time to do it. Absolutely. Well, share with me one or two of your very favorite circle time memories.

Yes. So I can tell you one of my favorites that I just get a kick out of to this day. And I think this son doesn’t, but I think it’s so funny. One point, you know, I had these three boys that were just all boy and the middle one, I would say probably if I had had him to diagnose, he would be labeled ADD, I mean, to this day, this is a man who cannot sit still at all. Even his in-laws have mentioned it to me. Like, you know, he just never sit still.

And I said, yes, I know. I mean, he paces. He he’s just, and he’s, you know, skinny as a whip because he’s never stops moving. And so this was the kid that when I would read aloud, he loved to hear it. That man, he just could not keep still. And so one day I took a bunch of beach towels and I gave them each a beach towel.

And I said, I don’t care where you are on this family room floor, pick a spot, but you’re going to lay on that beach towel and you’re not allowed to get off of it. And he, that was like the most torturous thing of his life he’s to this day will tell me I loved it when you read aloud. But man, when I had to lay on that beach towel, it was the worst. And you know, I’m thinking, boy, give me a beach towel and tell me to lie down. I’m there. I mean, you don’t have to tell me twice, but this guy just couldn’t do it. And I, I love that because I look back on those years and I think, yeah, he was my one who was scooting across the bench at the table, doing everything. He was the one that stood and drew. You know, he, he was the guy that had to learn his multiplication tables on the trampoline. And so that was just one of those memories that I look back on. And I think even in that, you know, we, we all got a kick out of it and laughed together.

We have so many good memories of just laughing together. And I would say, you know, raising eight kids, there’s a lot of stress in those moments. We had some medical emergencies that were really trying the opportunity to sit my weary, tired body down, and then just laugh with my kids. I am so thankful to God for those moments, because I think otherwise my kids could have left our home bitter that there was just all this exhausted mom heaviness, but instead we had opportunities to laugh together.

Do your kids have any favorite memories of circle time? I don’t, you know, there’s some memories that I think are super funny to us, but I’m not sure in telling them they would be, they’d be really funny to others. And they’re usually centered around the fact that I, I can’t draw to save my life and stuff.

They have this to this day, we’ll draw like these hideous looking animals and then say, Oh, look, it it’s mom’s monkey, you know, and stuff like that. Cause I was trying to illustrate things. And So clearly their favorite things are when mom’s the butt of the joke.

Yeah, I think so. I think just like seriously, they, you know, just, those were times were so funny that they could just, you know, again, just laugh together. So I don’t know. I’m gonna think of something really great tonight at midnight and then go, dang, I should’ve said that.

Well, if you do just let me know and we’ll like call each other up tomorrow and record and it’ll be great.

Well, you know, you were doing circle time really so long before many of us were doing it. And without a lot of the helps and resources that are available now, you know, now it’s just the buzzword and people are talking about it and there’s resources and you can go and see what the homeschool mom down the street is doing in her circle time. But you know, how did you do it? What would you say is the biggest mistake maybe you made?

Mm, I would say the biggest mistake I made was thinking anything was going to be static. And I would say that’s true of all of my homeschooling. You know, I would make this beautiful circle time plan and then realize that, you know, there was one year my sixth child was born the week before Christmas.

And then I had this very precocious two year old, who we called the bull in the China. Actually we called her a blender with the lid off because she just, that was just this child bull in the China shop. And so I can remember right after Christmas thinking, okay, we’ve got to get back to school. Now, mind you, the baby was probably three weeks old, you know? And I’m like, we gotta get, we gotta get back on track here, you know? And so it would start with circle time because I knew we could get some of those things done and it could be a little more laid back than feeling like I had to get everybody through their, their math, you know, or their grammar or whatever.

And so I just remember we were cleaning up the kitchen one morning after breakfast, trying to get it, you know, the table already for circle time. And I turned around and she was eating butter from breakfast. And just sitting there eating a stick of butter, like this was the best thing I could ever have given her. And we just looked at each other like, Oh my goodness, Caroline is eating the butter. And so now, you know, we, we gotta clean this up and get this going. And so that’s the kind of environment that’s what was going on. And then I, you know, sit down and nurse the newborn and then this two-year-old was also the one that would smack her head on the coffee table, you know, and then, then she’d be crying and there goes 15 minutes or whatever. And so it was just this, like, you know what circle time is not going to be what I thought it was. So I’m going to revamp this and our circle time, that semester became videos that were like little fun activity videos. I know now we use Go Noodle for the ones that need to move.

That’s a free, great online resource where it’s like movement songs and, you know, all kinds of like little activities where they can keep moving. I did have to incorporate more movement for some of my kids. So we did this book that was like amazing, awesome, and PE activities. And it was, you know, like kicking happy socks and stuff like that.

And it was just like, Hey guys, choose a partner. And let’s, you know, hop on one foot and let’s do from jumping and you know, all that kind of stuff together. And I just had to learn that my little, you know, best laid plan was not necessarily going to be how circle time was going to play out. So I think that’s the biggest mistake was thinking I had this great plan in mind and it was just going to go that way.

So I, I would say, you know, maybe learn from my mistake that if you have to change things after five minutes into a circle time, that seems disastrous, don’t throw in the towel, you know, just pray and ask God to give you some great ideas for, for something that suits that time better.

Yeah. And then like what’s working today might not be working five months from today and it’s okay to come up with an entirely new plan that you think is going to work better.

Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s no failure in this. I mean, what your kids are going to take away from it, I think are probably the, you know, just like anything in life, what they take away from it is never what we thought they would, you know? I mean, I think it’s great that my kids memorized all these wonderful things and I would love to think that, well, actually I do know my oldest son was taking a CLEP test, which is a, you know, college level examination and it was right on history. And he said, Oh my goodness, there was a question on Thomas Aquinas. And I remembered that stupid song. We used to sing in circle time about Thomas Aquinas, writing the Summa Theologica and I got the answer, right. Because that dumb song we used to sing and I said, see, see, here’s a lot of value in the silly things we used to do. Yeah, that’s right. Just to switch it up, you know, make things work for you in the moment and just trust that God has some good things for your kids to learn. That might not be what you originally put down on paper.

I love that. So was there a place you could go for ideas and help back in the day for circle time? Was there anybody else doing it where that you knew?

You know, when I started writing about it, I would have people say things to me like, Oh, we do something like this. So I think moms were doing it. I think, you know, there was sort of this idea of like, I want to have this group, you know, time, or, or, or, Hey, I don’t need to teach these things individually or let’s get in the word together or let’s start our day praying together, you know, all those things that are so great about homeschooling.

So I think there were moms who were doing some version of this in their homeschool, but nobody had really put a name to it. And I, I do not remember now I could be totally wrong in this, but I don’t remember any other bloggers really blogging about it at the time. And so I just started writing about it because the response at the time was really positive.

People said, Oh my goodness, this is exactly what I need. So then I just kept writing. And then, you know, over the seasons I would write posts like here’s our fall 2010 circle time. Here’s what we’re doing, you know? And then I, you know, then it was sort of this catalog of ideas for other moms to use and choose from.

And that’s really all I did. I would tell you that when I started Googling circle time, everything that came up was really for a preschool setting. And it just didn’t, it wasn’t what I was going for. So I probably should have renamed it in the beginning. Probably shouldn’t have been Circle Time because that’s really not the same thing as what a school does, you know? And it just like anything, you know, we kind of can’t pull a classroom plan into our homeschools. It just doesn’t always work. And so, you know, it was just a matter of trial and error and saying, Oh, this would be perfect for home for our circle time this year, and then writing about it and putting it out there and just giving other people ideas.

Now, When you would sit down to plan a circle time, would you like come up with a list of little goals? Would you have any particular thing in mind or did you just kind of go with what struck your fancy?

Probably a little bit of both, but I would say there was, I was being very intentional in a lot of ways. There were things that I knew my kids need to learn things that came up, you know, in conversation with other people, my kids weren’t in AWANA or any programs like that. And so it was like, you know what? I really want them to walk away with a lot of Bible memory that they’re just not going to have a time, the rest of their lives, where it will come as easily as it does to them, you know, how they just memorize circles around us. And so I did make an entire list. I actually put my oldest child on it one year and I said, I want you to write out a hundred, you know, just give me a hundred verses that these kids should memorize. And between the two of us, we came up with this list of of a hundred verses that we thought were really great springboards for everybody else to memorize. So when he compiled the list for me, I think I paid him. So I’ll give you 10 bucks if you make this list, you know, or something like that. So there was some of that, like the necessity part of it,

Oh my goodness. My kids need table manners. We’re working on that in circle time this year, you know, that kind of thing. And so yes, some necessity, some of them, again, what I, what delighted me, you know, I thought I really want them, I have a degree in music. And so I wanted them to know the classics.

And so we spent, you know, a whole seasons learning, different pieces of music so that they could recognize the difference between Mozart and Bach and Copeland, you know? So those kinds of things, I remember I had an alarming reality, you know, like reality based parenting situation once with a child that made me realize that I really wanted to camp for a season on what it means to love one another.

And so I read a Max Lucado book. I can’t remember the title now, but it was something on, on love. And it was just, you know, Max Lucado is pretty, pretty easy read of an author. And I didn’t think it was too above my kids. And so I would read, you know, we would just read out of that, that year and talked about what it means to really love one another. So some things born out of necessity, some out of my desire and some out of my kids’ desires as well. We spent a semester, one time on drafting because one of my boys was interested. So we all got rulers and pencils and paper and learn to do some basic drafting.

Oh, I love that. That you would just kind of pull in their particular interest and add that to the circle time plan. That’s great.

Well, you know, it’s somehow you have to hook some of those kids too. So the ones that are a little bit like, Oh, circle time, or we have to do that again. You know, I would look at that child and think, Hm, what would keep that one interested? You know, I mean, I think we all kind of do that with read alouds to some extent, to like, Hmm. I bet if I read the 21 balloons to this engineering headed ten-year-old I would have him hooked, you know, and sure enough, that’s the one that, that loved that book. So, yeah.

Well, okay. Perfect segue. Read alouds. Give me a couple of your favorite read alouds from your circle times in the past.

Oh goodness. The list is huge. I I’ll tell you this. If you are starting out brand new homeschooling mom or start a list of the books, you’ve read aloud. I don’t know what compelled me to do that way back in 2007 when we began homeschooling, but I’m sorry, 1997. I’m making myself younger than I am. Yeah. We started homeschooling in 1997 and I have a list that goes back to 1997. The very first read aloud to my four-year-old was Charlotte’s web. And I am so glad I kept that list, partly because it’s so amazing to me to see that we have, I have read well over 400 books aloud to my kids over the years and repeated quite a few of them because they were favorites. I’ve read Swallows and Amazons aloud three times to kids, you know, because it was just a perennial favorite. And then you’re the older one. I heard it, but not the middle ones and then not the little ones. And so we had to Read it again. So I would say yes, Swallows and Amazons is one of my favorites. Children of the New Forest is not a real well-known book. Also a British children’s book, historical fiction. I loved it because it was set in the reformation time. And it’s from the perspective of Catholic children and we’re not a Catholic family.

So I loved that. It brought out a lot of great discussion about the reformation as seen from, from Catholic children. So that that’s a great book of adventure in kids. Who’ve lost parents and had to take care of themselves. So those two, I would say are at the top of the list. What else have I loved? Oh, Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat was a real popular one with my kids.

I know recently one of my sons, my oldest son, actually, who’s an adult and married and, you know, just as a, as a complete adult life. Now he told me that he had remembered reading The Nine Tailors by Dorothy Sayers and that he needed to pull that back out again and read that. So that’s been fun to hear my kids say the books that they loved, we’ve read the modern English version of Pilgrim’s Progress. That would be my second sense, favorite book. And so, you know, just fun to hear the things that they loved reading or the things that I read aloud. So you all will develop, you know, your favorites and the list of things that you love. I have huge read aloud lists on my Preschoolers and Peace blog.

Excellent. That you can just search for, but you know, they’re everywhere. I’ve I love the list. That’s on classical homeschooling on that blog that’s been around forever and ever. I used to print, I just would print that book that lists out, you know, prior to our libraries, having websites and apps, print the list out and go to the library and just check out the books that were on the list from picture books, all the way up to chapter books that were appropriate for high schoolers. So, you know, to make really good use of those lists and some of the titles that you see, you know, that show up on everybody’s list, maybe hone in on those, if you’re not real familiar. And then I know I’ve done Treasure Island a couple of times for each set of kids in our home and did it complete with pirate voices.

So wow. Really fun to do. Yeah. So, you know, we get into those and we have fun and yeah. So don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to jump in and do it dramatically. Your kids will absolutely eat it up.

You were not, I mean, it didn’t bother you a bit to come back and, you know, Hey, this is a great resource. I’ve done it with the first set of kids. And so I’m going to come back around and do it again, even if it might repeat for somebody. Well, I’ll tell you we’re on our fourth cycle of The Mystery of History. So this Year will be my fourth year in volume three. And so yeah, when I finished volume one this year and realized I’m probably not going to do it again, I gave a little inner inner cheer. So you’re like a history expert now, Kendra, I should be, but I’m not. Yeah, but that’s kind of actually a fun story. I, my husband and I went out for a, some yogurt this last weekend with the author of mystery history of history and her husband, they were in town for a local convention. And we have gotten to know them over the years of me speaking at different conventions and whatnot. And so we got together and we’re sitting in this little, this local frozen yogurt shop in my little town in central California. And my 18 year old daughter walked in just by happenstance. She walked into the yogurt place, didn’t know we were going to be there and she’s off to college this year as a biology major. So she’s done in our homeschool and she’s moving on, but she walked in and I said, Hey, Abby, come here. You need to meet somebody. And I turned to Linda Hobar whose voice we have listened to year after, year on the audio version of The Mystery of History. And I said, Linda, start talking to Abby. And she immediately got what I was doing. So she started talking to Abby and my daughter gasped. She just said, Oh, are you The Mystery of History lady? And Linda laughed. And she said, yes, I am. And she said, you are the reason I love history. And I thought I could not have set that up better.

I mean, I didn’t tell Abby to say that she didn’t know they were in town. You know, she didn’t know we were getting together with them, but you know, those are some of the beautiful moments where I think, all right, it was worth, it has been worth going through that curriculum four times for each of these kids. That is awesome.

Isn’t that fun? Well, Kendra, if there’s a mom out there and she’s, she’s maybe like you were, when you first started, she’s got that little six or seven year old and maybe a kindergarten or coming up five years and it may be a couple more little ones running around. What piece of advice do you have for her with starting homeschooling and morning time?

Well, my favorite thing to tell a mama, who’s just starting out maybe kindergarten, first grade is that you do not have to do everything all at once. So social studies, I always say is going outside and watching the trash man, you know, do his thing or going to the grocery store and talking through how it is you choose the groceries you choose, you know, and that kind of thing. So, you know, pare it down a little bit, realize that it’s not a classroom setting. If you’ve never homeschooled or been homeschooled, that there’s so much of life that is an early educator for those, you know, those young ones. And then just focus on the things that are the backbone of their education.

So learning to read, you know, that’s the thing to really focus on that first year, basic math facts, some of those just basic things, even skills like sitting still and listening to mom, you know, skills like taking care of your school items. We’re still working on that one in my home. So taking care of your pencil box and not losing pencils everywhere, and that kind of thing, just really focus on those basics. And then maybe if, you know, circle time is something you’re just loving doing or wanting to do pick maybe three things and then realize that those three things may not happen and you may be down to one and that’s totally okay. You know, you may have to change that depending on your child or what the circumstances are in your home, but just pick maybe three things say, you know, I want to, I love to color. I want to sit in color with this child. So we’re going to listen to classical music and, or we’re going to listen to a book on audio while we color this page, or we’re going to start memorizing verses. I have these really basic cards.

I just got, you know, like cardstock cut them into quarters and then chose 10 verses for my kids at that, at those ages to memorize. And they would get a little sticker next to each verse. And when the card was complete, we would go get, you know, an ice cream cone at McDonald’s or something like that. Very, very simple things that, that will bring joy to them and to you. So that circle time doesn’t quickly become drudgery.

Yeah. That’s great advice. Well, Kendra, thank you so much for joining me here today. Thanks so much for having me, Pamela. I just love talking about homeschooling and moms and kiddos and all of that. So I appreciate the opportunity

And there you have it. Now, if you would like links to any of the books or resources that Kendra and I chatted about today, including that list of 100 Bible verses because I knew you were going to want it. So Kendra is putting that online for us. We have links to all of that at the show notes for this episode of the podcast. So you can find those pambarnhill.com/YMB39. And we’ll send you off in the right direction to get everything you need, right there. Also at the show notes for this episode of the podcast is directions there for you to help you leave a rating or review for the your morning basket podcast on iTunes, to those of you who have done that already. We thank you so much for doing it. It really helps us get word out about the podcast to new listeners. We’ll be back in another couple of weeks with another great morning time interview until then keep seeking truth, goodness and beauty in your homeschool day.