Morning Time Magic WEEK 3- RECITATION

Yay! Week 3!!

RECITATION

Hopefully you have begun with Week 1 Ritual,  Week 2 Reading, and checked out Worship. If not- pop over- because they are nice places to start!

As mentioned before, Sarah Mackenzie who learned from Cindy Rollins, the Morning Time expert, have really written on this best.

But as great a joy as it has been to our family- I cannot help but share it, at least in brief.

RECITATION.

Does that word make you want to cower in a closet or hide under the covers of your bed, or make your throat dry?

Somehow, it doesn't conjure up gorgeous memories or feelings for me, either.

I find that knowing what a word is all about can take the scariness of it away ...

It's a Latin root, 

we all know that re means again, or again and again 

+ citāre to summon..

so we are summoning again some thing we have inside us.

That sounds better, doesn't it?

It reminds me of how commonplace books were once called "Flora Legium".  Books of Flowers. 

Someone, probably Dr. Perrin, shared this and the idea that the real 'commonplace' that information would settle in would be
                         THE HEART.

woah...

[Because we would study our "books of flowers", our collection of precious and beautiful thoughts ideas, words, and know them by "heart".]

Just pause with that for a minute or two.

Being able to summon God's word kept Bess Ten Boom going with gentle strength and joy in a Nazi prison camp.

Tucking His word down in our hearts, keeps us from sinning and shows us where to go.

Reciting His words means we have a LIVING truth dwelling down deep, rooting us and bubbling out [being summoned again and again] even when the surface is a tempestuous sea or a lonely valley of death.

Knowing something well enough to recite it means we have a library of goodies to dig into at any moment needed.

SO- what do we want to recite?!

1. Scripture

2. Poetry

3. Literature

4. Chants and songs that help us remember helpful facts

5. you name it...

This is what we are trying to do:

 I have these old "Hooked on the Bible" Scripture cards. We pick one and memorize it. We repeat it and maybe put it to a tune...

I have a little devotion book with a scripture- we may memorize that.

We will review it each day of the week in Morning time, and then here and there later on- so our brain remembers that we want to keep it :-)

OR we memorize Shakespearean passages.

Ken Ludwig has even made printable for you. There's a link in his book, an you can copy out the passages.  We have learned and reviewed and now are beginning to actually recite dramatically! Oh boy!


OR Poetry

Andrew Pudewa selected a collection of great poems of great variety, and has presented a very easy, methodical way to memorize, review and tuck them down in your heart for a "summoning"- again and again.


“We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application–not far far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech–and learn them so well that words become works.”- Seneca

What are you reciting this year? what would you like to recite?

Share, friends!

Morning Time Magic - Worship

When I began planning our morning time I did not expect our worship time to take on the importance it has. Not that I thought worship unimportant. I did however think of it more as an "add on" during this portion of our day. But as God often does, He wrapped my heart around a ritual I didn't even know I was missing.

Our worship time began with us simply picking a couple of our favorite songs, pulling them up on youtube and going for it. And that was awesome. Then I remembered I bought Then Sings My Soul. 

I did not grow up in the church and do not have hymn lyrics rattling around in my head from days past. As I looked over some of the songs and found the richness they displayed I couldn't wait to share them with my children.  There is a sense of privilege in singing a song that has been sung by christians for hundreds of years. A connection to those who came before.  

This book is great because it gives the back ground story for each hymn. To hear the stories of tragedy and faith these songs were penned from is something special. Learning with my children that Abide with Me was first heard at the funeral of the man who wrote it, Henry Francis Lyte, in 1847.  Reading about St. Patrick and how his fearless spreading of the gospel allowed the church in Ireland to endure and centuries after his work a poet wrote Be Though My Vision. This book is full of treasures.

I plan a little ahead and hunt down versions of the hymn I want us to learn. I download those so we have them going forward and I make copies of the song sheets for each of the kids. We take out time. We stuck with Be Thou my Vision for no less than a month before we moved on. I truly want this music to seep into their hearts. I want these words to be with them like a loyal friend in years to come when a dark or glorious hour requires worship.

Of course your worship time doesn't need to look like ours. Pull up a Seeds Family Worship song and sing that with your little ones. Those are a great way to get scripture memorized. 

Here are a couple of our other favorites for worship time...

Setting some time aside each day specifically to worship Jesus with your children is time well spent. I believe with all my heart the Lord will bless it. And for me, nothing compares to the sound of those small (and not so small) voices singing,

"I fear no foe,

With Thee at hand to bless:

Ills have no weight,

And tears no bitterness.

Where is death's sting?

Where grave thy victory?

I triumph still,

If Thou abide with me."

-Henry Francis Lyte

If I'd Only Known Then: Some Thoughts on Flexibility

You've heard this before right?

"If only I'd known then what I know now. I would do so many things differently."

And if you are anything like me you may have smiled politely while thinking to yourself, "I know, I know. But that doesn't really apply to me."

I've been homeschooling for three short years, but there is one thing I know for sure. If I could go back in time three years? I would relax. A lot.  I couldn't imagine how swiftly time would move with my children.  How quickly my then five year old would be done with counting bears and phonics and moving on to borrowing(I will continue to call it borrowing even if Saxon insists it's called trading) and reading chapter books.  I couldn't imagine my fifth grader would ever reach  Challenge A. For some reason I did not anticipate him learning to draw and label the world from memory, or work out petrifying algebraic equations that force me to break out in a cold sweat. All while physically beginning to tower over me and speak to me in the voice of a grown man. It's quite astonishing. I could go on if only my agenda today included a nervous breakdown.

So this is my plea to all you beautiful and tired moms of little ones. And by little, I'm talking birth to sixth grade. I adore this definition of "little" because it allows me to remain in this category.

Be flexible. 

I can hear some of you now screaming at the screen. "What does that mean?!"

Allow me to make a feeble attempt at adding some concreteness.

If you arise one morning with the desire to visit a museum, ride bikes at the park, or work on watercolor art until the sun sets? Do it.

Create memories and experiences for and with your children. I find it strangely amusing this piece of advice is the most difficult for homeschooling moms to wrap our minds around. I'm still wrapping MY mind around it. I have yet to be in conversation with a mom and felt the urge to remind her of the importance of math, reading, or language arts. We've got that down. It's never perfect, but it is getting done. It may often be stressful, but it is always scheduled, and placed as the pinnacle of our homeschool days. I'm beginning to think no one would bat an eyelash if I said, "You really should do more math every day." or "Only one hour of reading a day? That's not nearly enough."  I say this in jest but what I'm getting at, truly, is that any responsible mom knows these skills are important. We are all working on these subjects are we not? I think what we forget is we will never teach them everything, nor is it our job to do so. What gets lost is the ability to enjoy each other, enjoy the world our Creator gave us, and the time to fill our children's hearts with beautiful moments.  I'm convinced when my time with them is up there will be laughter and fond memories over our camping trips and baking days, not math lessons and sentence diagramming.

I have been forced to face the urgency of this because I have now entered the world of Jr. High. And while I am convinced the program my son does is 100% fantastic, it definitely hinders our ability to be as flexible as we can be with our children in grammar school.  I'm determined however, that his every waking moment will not be filled with a school checklist.

For those who do have older students, here are a couple of ways I'm trying to keep the beauty of homeschool flexibility.

A trip taking us away from home for a substantial amount of time would require some re-working. While my younger kids can simply bring whatever book they are currently reading and their Classical Conversations memory work(honestly, I'd be ok with them bringing nothing but why waste hours in the car?), my oldest son will require a bit more.  We decided on any memory work he needs to keep up on during our absence. So he will be working on latin, geography, catechisms, and current literature. I won't require him to write the science research and literature papers usually expected. He can do all of this during down time while we travel. 

If we know we have a day of hiking or a movie making date with friends coming? We plan ahead. What work does he feel comfortable doubling up on in order to allow an off day? As his mom, is there an an assignment I can postpone or eliminate so he can fully enjoy a day with friends and family? The truth of homeschooling older kids is that they CAN fall behind. They don't have the luxury of skipping too many days or putting one subject on hold for too long. There is a pace to things. A pace my son doesn't feel comfortable falling too far out of. 

So I am determined in this stage to give him days. To give him days and moments he can tuck into his heart and draw upon when he is weary. I pray when the drudgery comes, as it does at times, he will have these small treasures from the past and some future treasures to anticipate.

It is all a gift. These days with our children. I implore you. Take full advantage of the years when the pace is yours to set.

We'll Never Cover It All, and I Will Lose My Mind Trying

Are you like me?
Do you fear that you won't cover all you need to?
Are you concerned you'll leave out some major field of study and your children will be academically crippled by it?
Do you find that when behaviors, or concerns or fears or sickness or visiting relatives or friends that just gave birth and need a meal, or a toddler that is is clingy,

cause you to lose your marbles?

Is a disruption in the schedule or plan the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back- and that camel is YOU?

I feel you.

I do.

 When I first taught in a beautiful little private school in San Bernardino, CA, my boss and mentor was a wise woman and very adept in teaching teachers.

There are countless bits of advice that I, a young woman with no children of my own and little life experience, treasured.

One of those, that I continually remind myself of and share as often as I can, went something like this:

"If all of September and even much of October is spent training your students to listen carefully and obey quickly and fully, I am confident that the remaining months will be more productive with that training than they would be if you solely concern yourself with plowing through academic content."

She suggested I teach the students to walk in a set traffic pattern though the room, train them when and how to sharpen pencils, throw away garbage, get in line quickly and in an orderly fashion, turn in papers in the same way each session and day, how to respond if I said "attention class!" or "please stand!" or "earthquake!" or how to be courteous, greet visitors, be helpful and do the weekly duties efficiently and well.

So I did.

And it did take a lot of my focus for the first month and a half.  When we got out of practice, we had "boot camp" again.

And in all the in-between times- we had order[mostly]. We knew what to expect, [mostly]. We had effective steady teaching and learning periods without distraction or interruption. We used nice manners and got along pretty well.  And we learned a LOT. We covered a LOT of academic ground.  They all did spectacularly on their testing! They all learned to read and add and subtract and tell time! They even started tying shoes and blowing noses and using sign language! It all fell into place. It all got covered, and I didn't lose my mind trying. [I did get grey hairs that first year, but...that's another story]

Virtues, habits, and rhythms paved a way for MORE. BETTER. DEEPER. SIMPLER. RICHER.

Home education is very different.
I wouldn't recommend trainmen your children to walk in a traffic pattern through the house, or jump when you say "please stand". [although that almost sounds heavenly, in a way ;-)]

and, as far as classically educating my children at home goes,

I am no pro.

I am still having light bulb moments and eye-opening scenarios, reading sessions on home education and classical methods [pedagogies] that resonate and inspire like brand new information.

But I do know that what she said applies to us at home, as well, and I long to appeal to all that are:
frantic
worried
insecure
or
fearful ...
placing character training, or snuggles [on just the right days] or other people in need ahead of the schedule, curriculum plan, whatever it may be called...
is TEACHING.

We get till about 12 years old to train in honoring God, respecting parents and elders.

We get till about then to light a fire in their hearts,

 marvel in wonder at inch worms, 

find the fibonacci sequence in pine cones and flowers, then decorate the spirals with glitter glue. 

We get till about then to snuggle in bed for an hour reading a great story of brave adventuring rabbits that fight bravely and hold to a noble cause. 

We get until then to drop everything to hula hoop 

and play chinese jumprope 

and climb trees 

and build lean-tos in the woods,
try making something "artistic"-even when we think we stink-

and dissect snakes, 

and bake muffins for the homeless shelter,

 and calculate how many gallons of rain water the roof produces in a good storm, 

or find eggs on the underbelly of a sand crab, 

and marvel at seed pods,
or learn embroidery, 

become handy with a slingshot, 

memorize oodles of poems because we can and its actually fun, 

write a play and build the set our of cardboard boxes and design the costumes from handed down goods, 

make graphs with halloween candy, 

grow a 3' square garden and tend it through harvest while using your worm farm composter under the sink, 

or sew stuffed animals for gifts, 

or hike at the nature center with a pack of friends and find all the scrub jays,

 acorn woodpeckers and coyote scat you can,
Brave the library,

or blast the music and dance like Baryshnikov 

or the Groovaloos, 

or sing like Pavarotti 

or Pharrell...

We just have so long...before bigger demands pull at that wonder, and that character, and that innocence, and affection. 

So what is we fill them up with it now- focus on it now- enjoy it all now- so it sticks and stays, so much is accomplished, so that rigor is welcomed, so that virtues are strong, so that a rhythm of grace and steadiness, and a leisurely enjoyment of the richness of all that God has is a treasure?

I am pretty certain you'll find that:
in all the in-between times- there is some order.[mostly] You'll know what to expect, [mostly]. You'll have effective steady teaching and learning periods without huge distractions or interruptions, and if there are, you'll keep your sanity and peace in it,  you may use nice manners and got along pretty well.  And learn a LOT. You'll cover a LOT of academic ground. You'll see them do spectacularly on their testing[if that's your goal] They'll all learn to read and add and subtract and tell time! They'll even start tying shoes and blowing noses and maybe speak a new language! It'll all fall into place.

It'll get covered. and you won't lose your mind trying.
Virtues, habits, and rhythms pave a way for MORE. BETTER. DEEPER. SIMPLER. RICHER.

Morning Time Magic WEEK 2- READING

Last week we began the Ritual of coming together for prayer.
I've heard the good advice to have a few components to prayer time:
1. Confession
2. Thanks
3. Prayer for the salvation of the lost
4. Prayer for missionaries and pastors and the persecuted.
5. Prayer for our own needs

Not rocket science and not original- I know :-) we sure don't hit each area each time, but I try to be mindful, so that my children can form that habit that I never really did. 

There was a Bonus challenge of adding a little reading.

This week that is the REAL FOCUS.

We are going to simply add Reading.

My kids like to write out the scripture we read, or just draw while I read to them... so I copied a friend of mine, and in my Morning Bin, I have drawing pads and utensils, silly putty, or something to fiddle with. It actually helps KEEP their attention sometimes. If it doesn't- its out.
:-)
Here is a collection of the suggested readings from families with young and old (er)... but mostly 12 and under.

The mamas that are reading these are finding that for their very little ones, the Jesus Storybook Bible is GREAT, and some of the old devotion books are just the right length and variety to work for busy little bodies, roaming minds and shorter attention spans...but those are building, as the ritual continues.

These readings are aimed toward Loving what is Lovely and what is True. God is Love and He is Truth... and His Word-Life.

Stephanie, mother of 4, ages 10 months-7yrs

Jami, Mother of 4, ages 5-12 

 Sara Jane, Mother of 4, ages 1-9

Kristen, Mother of 4, ages 2-7

Alexia, Mother of 4, ages infant- 7

Jenny, mother of 5, ages infant- 10 (with twin 2-year olds)
They also read the Jesus Storybook Bible so the little twins can be involved.  That book's great for age 2-102! We love. love. love it.

Kristin, mother of 4, ages 4-9 (with twin 9 year olds)

How many had this read to them as kids?! :-)

Here's the List so far:

The Family Worship Bible

Step into the Bible

A Faith to Grow On

Read Aloud Book of Bible Stories

Westminster Catechism For Kids

The Jesus Storybook Bible

I Can Learn the Bible

Then Sings My Soul

Big Truths for Little Kids

God's Alphabet for Life

Thoughts to Make your Heart Sing

Sword Fighting

So your morning looks like this maybe:

Cuddle on the couch with some fruit or muffins. [yay!]

Pray together. 

Pass out journals or notepads and colored pencils or something.

Read Scripture/ Devotional together. [older children may want to take this on]

Maybe read from one of the BONUS books from week 1 - Book of Virtues or Aesops- something easy. Something lovely.

Next week- we'll plant another seed in our Morning Time Garden! BOOM. Easy again! [almost like magic]

Let it snow

Ahh..Christmas time.  We are a family full of singers. Not that we always sing in perfect harmony with each other or even sound decent...but we all LOVE to sing! Loud and long. In the car ,(specially) in the house, in the yard,with friends, even alone. You get the picture. Not a lot of silence going on. Christmas time is even more fun. My kids love singing all the Christmas carols and even plan on dragging friends out to go caroling with them. (Watch out).  Some of the more wintery  songs mention snow.  Snow? What's that? We live in Southern California and don't get to see it that often. Chances are, when we do, we gather it up, pack it down, and chuck it at someone we love.  As we were wondering about this white phenomenon, I happened upon this. Snowflakes close up.
Wow! This made up wonder about nature...beauty... And our Creator- the Artist himself. Geology.com  says "A snowflake begins when a tiny dust or pollen particle comes into contact with water vapor high in Earth's atmosphere. The water vapor coats the tiny particle and freezes into a tiny crystal of ice. This tiny crystal will be the "seed" from which a snowflake will grow." It goes onto explain that as it falls closer to the earth, it picks up more and more frozen water vapor increasing its size while adding to its hexagonal shape. What?!? 
I have never dropped something from any distance and had it turn into something as beautifuland intricate as a snowflake. Mind blown.
Ok, so every snowflake is different? Our Creator knows the number of hairs on my head...
Luke 12:7 "Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows."
...and the number and names of all the stars?  Wow.
Psalm 147:4 "He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name."
 Our God is bigger than we can comprehend, but sees it fit to be a personal God...to love us and know us intimately. And, we are as individual as the snowflakes.

We have found that many times, admiring nature and further research into the how's and why's lead us to a better understanding of our God and creator. What an artist. 

Advent rings

Well- in my signature way, I am again behind.  Better late than never? Maybe

I was looking for a way to fuse our family tradition of doing the Jesse Tree Family Devotions a friend had shared with me years ago, and an Advent countdown.  I found a couple things, but ultimately decided to make my own...and everything I do takes quadruple the time I estimate.  That is my life in a nutshell.
Anyways, if you want to participate-I have included the pdf for you to print.
Have fun.
Make memories.
Remember the REASON.