Morning Time: Flooding Affections with Beauty

Flooding affections with beauty- sounds dreamy, huh!

I stole  borrowed it from Pam Barnhill.  [She has a great blog and beautiful offerings on the whole concept of morning time. She and Sarah Mackenzie and all the Schole Sisters, have rocked my newbie-classical world- but that's a whole different story]


Morning Time has been this non- routiney mama's way to execute that lovely ideal with some plan and structure, and still a whole lot of flexibility. Remember how we are here because we want to find all the early simple ways we can bring our children to encounters with Truth, Goodness and Beauty?CUE: MORNING TIME.

We started it in my home last spring after reading Sarah's book, Teaching From Rest. Brilliant.

...and PS: I have 3 daughters, aged, 10, 8 & 6. So keep that in mind- 
I don't have a nursing infant, or twins, or toddlers :-) so think of how you would make this time YOURS-ALL-YOURS.

We just eased in with a few hymns and contemporary songs to or about Jesus, Prayer, and scripture, followed by reading Number The Stars.

The hymnal was new to the girls, and a gift from my grandmother, so they were very enamored and wanted to sing for a loooong time.

We read a scripture passage in Proverbs and Psalms, then talked about what that would look like if we lived it.

We prayed for the person to our right.

And as I read, they were free to draw. They chose to make the scripture we read a pretty entry in their journals.

Now. To make sure I'm telling it right, I have a few things to point  out. There was squabbling amongst the children during scripture reading and the mother was disturbed highly and pointed out how rude they were. It was lovely. They were all so happy. Then there was some arguing over the markers because 142 markers isn't quite enough to share 3 ways. and the then 5-year old had a question to ask for nearly every line of the first chapter of the book. What kind of name is Lise, she wants to know...

But, at the end - said squabbling children said "that was nice", and said grouchy mother thought so too.

FAST FORWARD TO the "New School Year":
I'm just going to say it: I'm probably pretty lazy.
We found a sweet groove in our morning time, and I thought I'd add more stuff to it. Kill more proverbial birds with the same stone...

So- now we added our Classical Conversations Memory work, a poem to memorize (alternating monthly with a passage of Shakespeare), We read from The Book of Virtues one or several entries, depending on length, will have some time for narration of those stories, and close in the Doxology.  After that, my oldest begins her work and I continue to read a chapter of Life of Fred with the younger two, practice skip counting forward and backwards, and phonics rules.

Now, all of this can take 1.5 - 2 hours. We eat breakfast during this time, there is movement with our Classical Conversations Memory Work, we sing, hear great stories, recite, etc. It's not all sitting with hands folded at all.

It works for us, and some days it gets shortened because it isn't working- but so far- it's a nice flow. By the time we are done, we have accomplished a LOT!!!!

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT IN A NUTSHELL:

My favorite part of all is that we begin with the most important thing first- JESUS. 
You just CAN'T beat that. [and if I'm just going to continue to be embarrassingly honest, we haven't been great at establishing a ritual of going to Him together- first, or even consistently. ugh. but hallelujah! now we do!]

Morning Time, according to Sarah Mackenzie, is based on 3 main things:

1. Reading
2. Recitation
3. Ritual

These 3 things in particular, pull us together into unity, and we find ourselves engaged in a common endeavor. I love that. 

We add to that common ground with great stories and rich facts, ideas, and words to deposit in our minds all together. 

We get a little flooding of beauty that fills our affections.

We all like, maybe even love, the things we know.  

And while they say familiarity breeds contempt, in a learning mind it seems to be the contrary...familiarity forms connections. Connections grow enthusiasm, and enthusiasm grows a hunger for more things with which to become acquainted.

Yay!

So- Morning Time has truly revolutionized our day. learning.  life.

...and I stole borrowed something else from another mom: we call our Morning Time  "Convocation" - Latin for 'calling together'.

I love it.

In The Heart of a Seed...

In the heart of a seed, 

Buried deep, so deep,

A dear little plant

Lay fast asleep.

"Wake," said the sunshine,

"And creep to the light."

"Wake," said the voices

Of the raindrops bright.

The little plant heard;

And it rose to see

What the wonderful

Outside world might be.

-- Kate Brown

A seed is a small small thing. 

When my girls and I find ourselves in a burst of gardening glory, seeds end up strewn everywhere, falling from the cracks between fingers, out of the gathered bits in a pinch-too-big, from the crease of the tilted packet...

and in time, some blow away from the dry cracked hard-packed ground, some catch a spot within reach of the irrigation, and some end up in the soil we'd prepared and may just grow. And the magic happens. 

Without them falling to the ground, and finding some little spot- nothing will ever grow...so I learn that the big hurdle is to get out the seeds and get them in the ground. 

I can do that.

Hanging a print of fine art on the wall in the bathroom is a small thing.

It's not a labor intensive art appreciation lesson, that I don't feel prepared for so I'll procrastinate on doing, it's a SEED. A seed of beauty, perspective, emotion, opinion-formation, inspiration, story, history... 

It's and ENCOUNTER.

I can arrange that.

Repeating 4 lines of Shakespeare a few times a day(like meal times) is a small thing.

I may not even get it completely, nor grasp the full meaning in each brilliantly chosen word, but I can repeat it, maybe print, and perhaps hang it inside my kitchen cupboard. Seeds of understanding language, metaphor, the power of memorization, the rhythms of poetry are planted...in 4 lines.

I can manage that.

Singing (or making a joyful noise) to our Maker is a small enough thing. It doesn't take a lot of time or effort- its a visit to YOUTUBE, or selecting from a playlist, or looking in the hymnal~ but it plants a seed of truth, a seed of joy, a seed that forms priority, a seed that sets the heart right.

I can do that.

So can you!

Just a small seed of SOMETHING good, true & beautiful...plant one now.
Don't wait for the right time or the best plan...get to planting!

He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.