(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility, or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm super excited about this week's podcast. We're gonna be talking about morning time, what in the world that is, and how useful that is for our families as we all work to develop our family rhythms, how we make it through the day, how we travel along this homeschool journey, and how we build closer relationships.

Learning together, I will tell you, as I look in the rear view mirror now, my girls are grown, and I have two sweet grandchildren that I'm looking forward to dabbling in their home educations. But as I look back, the biggest blessing of my life has been learning to know and love my children and introduce them to my Lord.

And so I am excited about talking to you guys and my dear friend, Amy Jones, about morning time and how it helps us do all that stuff, love one another better, love the Lord better, love learning better. So Amy, thank you for joining me today. - Oh, thank you.

This is always a delightful time to just reflect, like you just said, on those memories and try to encapsulate just what has been sort of the heartbeat, right, of what our time with our family, what I think I am usually now even more grateful for those, just those, even those boring days, you know, I'm so thankful.

I'm just, I can't imagine having not homeschooled my children and just have that much intimate time with them. So yes, I agree with you. Thank you, Lisa. It's just a great time to reminisce a bit. So thank you. - It is. And the truth is sometimes there are days when you are in the middle of things that are not pretty or not restful or not fun.

And you just think there has got to be something better. But I promise you moms and dads, as you look back, there probably won't be anything better. The worst day that you ever have investing in your family is going to be a sweet memory when you look back on it.

Let's get started though. Amy, you are a mom who homeschooled and you are a grandmom who loves joining in on your grandkids' homeschool journey. So I know you've got lots of tips for our listeners. I really want to plumb your brain. I want to ask you this question. If you were starting over now, given all that you know, what might you do differently?

- Well, we have a limited time, don't we, Lisa? - Yes, I know. You have to pick and choose. - I have to pick. I think I would be better at practicing a few habits that would have helped me remember the goodness of God and remind me that my children are human beings.

They're real people. They have real personalities and likes, dislikes. Some of them are not mine. They're not just little replicas of me or my husband. And I think I would have been more quicker to recognize just some of those delightful foibles, maybe. - Yes, yes. - And not let it produce anxiety if they weren't getting something right away.

So I think I remember just going to the Lord and saying, what am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do because they're, especially when your children are in multiple grades and they're all doing something different and you're trying to keep up and remember, oh, I didn't do spelling last year.

Maybe I should be. (both laughing) He brought me to that wonderful, simple set of verses in First Thessalonians. And I know you know it. And it's in five and he goes, "Well, what is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you?" And it's three things. It's rejoice always, pray without ceasing and give thanks in all circumstances.

And I think I would have started practicing those verses in real time earlier. I would have recognized, I think when we're giving thanks to the Lord, we begin to recognize and pick up on how he's actually working in our home, our life, our marriage, our children's lives. We get to start recognizing, oh, thank you, Lord, for that.

Thank you for this. And I recognize that you are actively working in our lives and hearts and minds in ways that I cannot do. So I think giving thanks opens our hands to his ways. And we can even be thankful for things that we're still on the fence about.

- Or things that we don't understand or that we would not choose. - I think it helps us just to be mindful of his presence that's constantly with us. And then rejoicing, there's so many pieces of scripture that says rejoice. And it's just irregardless of circumstances, what's going on in the world or what's going on in our family, that he gives us the freedom.

I think he gives us the pleasure of just rejoicing. And I think part of that is such a gift for us that it means we don't have to worry or stress about things that are out of our control, that we can rest in God and rejoice in his goodness, his kindness.

And it helps us recognize parts of himself that I forget, especially during the day. Sometimes I forget his goodness, his kindness. And then of course, that just leads directly into pray without ceasing. Because if you're thinking and rejoicing while you're in prayer, and I do think a lot of times, I think I could have allayed a lot of my anxiety and put it into prayer.

Instead of the work of anxiety, I could have moved that to the work of prayer. And I think I would have, I mean, over time, the Lord was gracious. He taught me that over time. I think I wish I could have pushed the reset button a few times and thought, you know, this is really what God's word says.

It's the will for me. This is the truth. And I need to follow the truth instead of the truth that's in my head, which is don't rejoice unless something great's happening. You know, don't pray unless something traumatic is going on and deserves prayer. And for heaven's sake, you can't be thankful for this, you know, and when you can't explain, you know.

So that is not, and that's not the mom I wanted my children to be around. - Right, that is so true. - Yep, yep. So I think that would have been, I would have hit those three points. It's not a long list. - Isn't that funny? It's not a long list, but it is an all-encompassing list because it covers everything.

It covers our worry about little Johnny's not getting this or little Susie is way too much of this. I have failed here. I have left this out. I am running ahead. I just love it. I feel like what you're saying that you wish you had known if you could start over, you would tell yourself to calm down and realize that God is in control.

We need to rest in the Lord, not stress so much because our anxiety is what either drives us to worry and constant work, or our anxiety can drive us to prayer. And that is actually the better way. I love that. I know, Amy. So often I look back and think, wow, I would be a much better homeschool mom now.

- Oh yeah. - But homeschooling is, I have become convinced homeschooling is a refining, not for our children. It is a refining of us as parent leaders and what our children get along the way is a bonus. It's a benefit. I do like that. I love the first Thessalonians five references.

So you guys remember, if you don't remember anything else, remember that Amy has shown us a better way to rejoice, to pray, and to give thanks. I want you to look back, Amy. When your kids were little, how did you start your homeschool day? - We were pretty routine, boringly routine in our homeschool day because I have four children and they're about two to three years apart.

So there was someone always little or up at night or pregnant, whatever it was going on. So what I felt like was really helpful for me is that we had to have a particular start time of the day and a particular ending time of the day because we needed to know we were finished.

- Yes, right. - It didn't bleed into the evening. We weren't getting up at nine and I'm behind the eight ball the whole day. - Yes, yes. - I felt like it was really helpful that we got up at a pretty reasonable time in the morning and we had some routine things that we did.

We had breakfast, we had chores, and then at 8.30, we have a little place in our home, this little living room area. That's where we would meet for our morning devotions and just our morning gathering. We did that every morning and it was a great way mentally for us to go, "Okay, 8.30 is coming." And if you had not had your breakfast, I was really, really sorry about that, but we're going to get up early.

- I guess tomorrow we'll get up earlier. - Yes, yes. And if you didn't finish your chores, which were not, unless you ask my children, which they felt at that point enslaved. - Yes, you're just enslaved. You're enslaving your children. - Yes, but it was mainly 10 minutes of putting your bed together and picking up.

It was very simple. But if you didn't get your chores done, you would just have an extra chore to do later. But really what was the best part was having a routine every morning. We are sitting. We're in our little sitting places in the living room and everyone has their Bibles are in there and we just, we're ready.

We're ready for the day. So I did have, and that happened every morning that I was, yeah, pretty much every morning. And then in the evening, we usually had time when my husband was home and we prayed together and we read together. And that was just, it was just a rhythm.

It was like a big parenthesis. Here's the beginning of the day. Here's the ending of the day. And that was, it was very helpful for me mentally to know, okay, I've got to be there too. And just kind of jumpstarted the day. And if I didn't feel ready, we started.

We started, yes. So we did that every day. Yeah. - Now, I really think that young children thrive on a routine. I think that they like the familiarity and the predictability. I have, I started life as a kindergarten teacher and as a children's librarian. And even when I was in high school and college, I worked with little kids in Bible school and in summer programs.

And it really, it was clear to me from working with them so intimately that they feel safe when they know what to expect. And transitions, which are traditionally really difficult for small children, are easier to manage when they know what to expect. And people act better when they're not surprised by things.

And so I like, we liked routine of that nature too. And the routine for little children, it gets them to accept responsibility for their actions earlier. You know, if everybody, if you can look around as a four-year-old and see that your older siblings are doing their chores, then you know what your chore is.

And so you begin to take responsibility for that and for finding your little Bible and for getting your lovey to sit with you on the couch for morning time. And you begin to understand how to take charge of the small pieces of your life that you can manage. And I liked that.

- So what about when your children, or when some of your children got older, did you still start the day together? - Oh yeah, we actually went through their high school years. Yeah, it was, we were always, except for like CC day, when we had to get out the door at 7.30.

We always started the morning at morning time. We didn't call it morning time. We just said divination rules. - Right, us too. - So we would just gather and, you know, 15 minutes or 20 minutes. And it was, I felt like, honestly, the older years were more important in some ways because we were so scattered.

You know, people were doing their soccer team practice. They had, some of my children had work. Some of my children had, you know, other activities that they kind of, you know, or they needed the car or they needed this. And so our morning time became really important because we would just gather around the word of God.

We'd read a passage. And about that point, they were able to completely talk about things. You know, they weren't like, you know, hitting each other, blowing on each other. - Yes, yes. Ways to encourage one another in teenage ways. - Yes, yes. I mean, sometimes they, you know, flumped in and they were tired and grumpy and, or didn't really want to be there.

Or maybe they had something on their mind that weren't really eager to share, which is fine. But sometimes just being together and just praying and just having, I think sometimes as moms, that we pray over our children blessings and thanksgiving. I think it was really important for them to hear.

I was thankful for them. You know, how much I love them, how much God loves them. I think just repeating back some just truths about who God is and who they were. And then just having a time, but sometimes we'd sing a hymn and then prayer and read scripture.

And then I would usually, for the older guys, I would say, what's your goal for the day? What do you, what's kind of, what's on your plate? What have you got going on? And how can I help you with that? And usually they'd have, is my soccer uniform clean?

Or, you know, I need the keys to the car or someone says coming over for study hall or I'm stuck in math. I don't know what to do. So those kind of like a little business meeting at the end of that time just helped us kind of all reframe what we're going to do.

And then everyone kind of set off to their work by that time because they're older and they could manage it. And I would be just more of the support, you know, helping them out. So, yeah, it was, and we did that even in the evenings. Whit read to the boys until they went off to college.

He was always, yeah, it's just, it's just, we just, we found, I think I found it lovely. - Oh, I love what you said that it was the parentheses around your day. You began together and you ended together. It's like a beautiful bookend of the life journey that you lived out together in your home.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yes. - So good. I know that now, I mean, I have heard this a lot in the last few years. You know, Amy, you said, "Oh, we didn't call it morning time." I never heard of morning time 20 years ago when I started homeschooling. My girls were, you know, 10 and seven 20 years ago.

So we didn't call it morning time. I didn't know what morning time was. I know that now I hear it all over. A lot is made of morning time and sometimes morning basket time. What is that? And do you have to use a basket? (both laughing) - Yeah, you know, Cindy Rollins wrote "Mere Motherhood," you know, about that time, about 10 or 15.

And she's a lovely person. She lives in Chattanooga here near us. And just the most down-to-earth, ordinary, lovely, lovely mom that you would ever meet. And she kind of coined, you know, the idea of morning time. And I think the vision, it's changed over time, but I think it's just what we're talking about.

It's a time that you gathered with your family together. First thing in the morning, usually. In a routine way, it was regular every morning. And you usually read something. You had a devotional, like you read the scriptures and you prayed and you may have sang a hymn. And then, so there's a reading part and it could even morph into reading something else, but always the emphasis on putting the Lord at the center of the morning of the day.

And then there's usually some aspect of recitation, either something memorized like a poem or a verse, or like we worked on memorizing the doxology, the glory of the Lord's, you know, prayer, Apostles' Creed, you know, those were things that we worked on memorizing verses. We didn't usually recite poetry or anything during that time.

It was usually just our devotional time. So it was usually just something that a devote, some centering on the Lord, something that your scripture reading and your prayer, and then it's routine. And then there's usually an aspect of narration, speaking, repeating back what you just heard or memory work.

So it's very basic. Now it takes all sorts of flavors and loveliness into the poems, but that's sort of the bare bones of it. And I think it's, no, you don't have to have a basket. - Sometimes people, I was just like, no, what is this basket deal? And so we'll talk about in a minute what might be in your basket or on your shelf or, you know, somewhere that you pull out.

How long, you said that you guys took, what did you say, 20 or 30 minutes? Is that how basket morning time usually is? - It really varies. I really love, I was looking at the Scribblers resource and there is a part in there about how you tell a story.

And one of the things is you're recognized when people are kind of done. (laughing) - Yes, yes. - You know, the time really varies because you have a variety of little guys. If you have like, we had a three-year-old, five-year-old, seven-year-old, nine-year-old, they're different. And I have three sons, so they don't sit for long periods of time.

So we would do our devotional and finish in about 15 to 20 minutes. Sometimes like we had drama on Wonderful Wednesday, which is basically, we just got scarves and we tied them all over ourselves and added something. And then we had, which was insane, a music instrument day on Friday, which I don't know why I did that because they argued over the same tiny little survey.

- Oh, 'cause everybody wants like the time block. Yeah. - Everybody wants. So, but that was kind of, that may have taken a little longer, but I tried not to belabor. And it just, you want to keep it really fresh and interesting. So we did sing. We always sang a hymn and a contemporary song.

So we, by the time that was over, it's like 15, 20 minutes. And then we would sort of, we would take a break, like a little 10 or 15 minutes, just so I could re-kind of- - Yes, reset. - Re-open my mind and everyone was always hungry. Again, I don't know how that happens.

- Yeah. They become grazing animals at home, yeah. - Oh yes, every two hours. They never got out of that since infancy. And so then we would get together and this time we'd just sit on the couch and lay on the pillows and the, you know, big pillows and the kids would get their little light.

You said they're lovey. I was our youngest, I would say they're a little lovey. And then we would read together. We would read. We always had some, a chapter book we were reading or a piece of history that we were doing together or, and then that would be more what I would say, the educational aspect where it would be like, we're gonna look at this poem or we're gonna look at this story or we're gonna talk about this.

So that's when, again, that only was like 15 minutes. That was not long periods of time. It was just to get, whet your appetite. That's the way I think of it. Gather, whet your appetite, get ready for the day. So that's kind of how we did it. - That's good.

And where did y'all, you said you guys would be around the couch or in the family room on pillows. - Or if we wanted to do something, sometimes we would do something with like drawing or something or folding. I had, you know, my sons never loved coloring. (laughing) So I can't speak to that.

But if we did sit around the table, we either did like Legos, like someone would be doing some cool Lego building and talking about that. Or if we were reading, sometimes giving them something to do. Like something to fidget with or, you know, and at the table light, they could be drawing if they wanted to.

I used, they had a bunch of tracing paper because again, my sons weren't big on drawing or that I had particular children that were devastated. It didn't turn out just exactly like it was. - Yes, it was in their mind. They couldn't make it like it was in their mind.

And so let's not do it. - So we just did tracing so they could trace the picture. So it varied, but normally that was a little more relaxed. Like that was like, okay, let's just kind of gather. We're all reading about China. So let's talk about China. Let's read a story about China.

And then we would move more into the kind of what I would say the formal part of the day where we're actually like, I'm working. I'm usually working with each child or two children together. - Yeah, I love that. It's like a slow entry. So you add your devotion time and people are quiet and contemplative, but then you start maybe singing or doing narration of the story you read or some memory work.

And then it becomes, let's read a little bit together, maybe a history or a biography and maybe you're doing something while you listen. And then the pump is primed and we can do math or we can do our handwriting or we can work on our vocabulary words. Yeah, that's really, that's really good.

I like that. I want to encourage, I can remember doing what I now know was morning time with my girls. Sometimes we would take blankets in the good time of year. It's not too hot, not too cold, not too humid and not too buggy. We would take quilts or blankets out under the trees in the yard and we would read and we sometimes we would close our eyes and we would listen.

It was just a sweet time of starting the day together. So it doesn't have to be regimented as to place. I think that what you said is really important. The habit of gathering together, the routine of starting the day, all together doing these things gives you the freedom to do it wherever you want to.

That's really cool. So let's go back because I suspect that lots of our listeners are now captivated with this whole idea of the easy start to the day. But what are some things that family, I want to be real practical, something people with very young children might try during this time and then the ancillary to that is how do you get your children interested in doing what you have chosen?

Yeah, oh goodness, yes, yes. That's always the issue. Well, with very young children, we were much more brief, right? We did more like finger plays and hopping up and down and singing silly songs and being a lot more animated in that time or being cuddly and cozy. You're really kind of reading the room, so to speak, with who people are.

And it's important that if someone's just feeling out of sorts, we don't need to impose upon them, like, well, you've got to be happy about this. They can just sit quiet. They were, they could be grumpy. They just had to sit quietly and they couldn't hit their brother or sister.

Right, right. That was part of the rule. You had to be there. But I think for as your youngers, I do think it's nice, like if you have flannel graphs or little puppets or something that engages them and the stories, the Bible stories, there's so many great Bible stories that are just in a storybook form that tell the real story and have illustrations, but kind of are a gentle way of getting kids, children understanding the parts of the story, but not diving deep into the story.

So, and they can pray beautifully. You know, our children would pray. Like, could you pray for the person on your right? Or could you pray, you know, or sing? So little kids, and then you, for your other time, like I think the reading time, just a stack of, you know, good picture books or a variety of books that you have that you sort of gather and you could put it in a basket if you'd like, or just put it in a stack beside, you know, gather them together what you're reading together to keep the little ones occupied or do some hands on thing.

I love the, I love finger plays. I think those are really sweet. And I think it's really sweet to be like, do a little circle time, you know, who's wearing a red shirt today. If you can sing that song and everyone lights up like, oh, I'm wearing a red shirt.

- Yes, yes. - So just doing some of the, even those little we sing songs, introducing little folk songs and little nursery rhymes. Those are all the times that you do that. That to me is like the sweet part of childhood. You get to kind of embellish that a bit.

So yeah. - Oh, that is so, that's really good. And I like your emphasis on bringing concrete tools into the story time because children, with older kids, you could talk about, sit and just read the story and just talk about what it means. But little kids need to have something to touch and see.

So they might need a puppet of that character to envision that character in the beginning. And then eventually they'll be able to fill in the details with their imagination and moving their body. Actually with little kids helps them listen. It doesn't deter their listening. It helps their listening. So I like those hands-on activities, the things that they can do to involve all of their senses are really important for our little kids.

The things that they hear and smell and see and do. - Yes, exactly. You can have, and you can incorporate. That's the things that you think, I don't have time for it. Those are great things to incorporate in your morning time. Like if you think, oh, we don't have time to play with Play-Doh during the day.

Well, grab some Play-Doh and just say, let's sit at the table and what do you make? And they, I can't tell you the number of times, they love the drama time. I mean, literally I had to close doors. - Oh my goodness, my girls too. - It's just so funny.

They're like, can we act it out again? I'm like, okay, you know. And they just love that movement and integration that they naturally do. It doesn't, it just comes with the package of having a, you know, five to eight year old, you know, they just know to do that.

So yeah, it's really fun. Try to delight in it. I think that's where I, it seems like, oh, this is just play. I've heard people say that, but no, that's the work of a child. - Yeah, that's exactly it. Anything that engages all their senses is engaging their mind.

And here's the thing, the thing that you think is gonna be engaging to them might not at all. I know my grandson who just turned two in June was over here this weekend and we were outside. It was hot. He always loves to be outside. So I had taken the bullet and I was out in the heat and we were walking around and he was picking up this and picking up that.

And we were walking down the driveway and I said, buddy, it's so hot. And he looked at me 'cause he was standing under a tree. And he looked at me and I could tell he was thinking, Lolly, it's not hot. And so I said, oh, Gideon, look at this.

And so I stood in the middle of the driveway and I held out my arms and I said, I am in the sun. The sun is touching me and I'm hot. And then I ran over to where he was and I said, now I'm in the shade. The sun is not touching me and I am cooler.

And he looked at me, kind of funny. And so I went on back out and walked and he said, Lolly, talk about it again. - Ah, I see. - And I thought, okay, 'cause he looked. And so, I mean, he asked for this. So I did the same thing.

Now I'm in the sun, the sun is touching me. So I went through it and he said, talk about sun again. And then he said, talk about shade again, like three or four times. And I thought, okay. And so I had to go back in and tell my daughter, okay, we've got a new concept now.

Sun and shade, 'cause I knew a lot of times she will call me after he's been with me and she'll say, okay, did you talk about flap like a bird? 'Cause I never said that to him. And I don't know where this is coming from. And so I will say, okay, now you might have to talk about windmills or you might have to talk about shade.

And so just realize that with your little children, the things that you see as a throwaway comment are the things that they are gonna grab a hold of and might become a thing. So don't have, I think a tip for me from Morning Time is don't have such a structured plan that you can't go off script happily at the drop of a hat because you never know where your child is going to learn something today.

- And that's, and really, if you need to put it in your schedule, you can say, that's what this is about. - Yes, chasing curiosity. - Yes, check it off your list. I explored, we prayed, and we checked. If that makes you happy that you accomplished, if that makes you feel like you've accomplished, then do it.

But I do think that having a time that's set aside that is sort of unstructured. It is structured in that it's routine and we're always gonna pray and we're gonna study the scripture. But if someone comes up with something that they're just so excited about, that's also a time that you celebrate with them.

Like, you know, can you show us like, oh, look, you won a little jewel at Iwana. Let's look at that, let's celebrate this. Or someone's fascinated, I had someone that was absolutely fascinated by Venus fly traps. So we just took some time and chatted and like you said, explored it.

And you just showed Gideon both the idea of shade and sun. Wow, that's a big concept. And that's super neat that you got to do that and he watched you and that's what they'll typically do. Do it again, say it again, do it again, do it again. - I know, again, again, again, again.

- Yeah, it's nice. - So what if I'm a young mom at home and I'm fascinated with this whole idea, but I've just started and my oldest child is just four. And so I don't have a craft closet yet and I don't have a lot of picture books yet.

Where do I get ideas? Where do I get resources if I wanna try this but I don't know where to start? - Ooh, that's good. Well, of course your local library has resources and I would say if you're NCC Connected, they have tons of book lists in the Foundations channel.

They just do such lovely gatherings of good books, but you can find some good, like what are some good Caldecott book awards, especially the early ones. And every library has those. So I would just say, go to the library and just start gathering a variety of books and visit parts of the library that you never go to, like maybe the picture section, geography section, just grab a smattering and start there.

And then everyone has a Bible. You probably have some hymns or songs that you sing at your church. Well, then just start incorporating a few things here and there and get a feel for how you wanna shape that morning time. And then in the Scribbler's Guide, as well as in the Copper Lodge series, the Ancient World Echoes, there are lists and lists of poems that are so fun to read.

Like if you are thinking, I don't know anything about poetry, there are so many resources that CC has that you can read. In fact, in the World Echoes and in Uncle Paul's, which I love Uncle Paul's, they're just little 20 minutes readings that usually none of your kids have done, even if they're 18.

You know, they may not have read all the Aesop's Fables and those are cool. You can act those out, you can narrate those back and they're funny. - And they're short. - Yeah, they're super short. And they tell a good lesson. If you have a particular lesson you want to be emphasizing in your family, you can find an Aesop's Fable.

You know, so, and that's just so, those are just, let your imagination sort of go and try to keep it, remind yourself, it does not have to look perfect. It is, and this is my little soapbox. When you go on Instagram or you go on websites, if you go Morning Time, normally you're gonna get a beautiful, a lovely picture of your family.

And they are usually completely dressed and sometimes matching beautiful clothes. And they have their hairs all done. - And they're washed and all the pets are groomed. - Yes, there's always fresh flowers and candles and there's usually teacups. And I just, I look at that and I think, wow, we never, zero times in our, and I was thinking the other night, how many times did the day go right?

Maybe five. I did it 22 years. - Right, right. - But maybe five times. - And never when anybody else was looking. - Oh, never, never, never. Yeah, I couldn't, you would have never guessed. And I, you know, and that's the point. We didn't have any kind of picture.

I never even thought to take a picture, but because I was so hairy. But I would just want to remind moms that sometimes we have this idea of what our morning or our day or our homeschool should look like. And it's almost like this dream that we think or what we've been shown.

This is the way it should be. And I would just encourage families that is not the typical way it should be. Your family is the gift from God and your family, maybe they, you know, you wear pajamas to morning time. Maybe you eat breakfast after. Maybe you eat breakfast during.

You know, maybe it's sloppy. Maybe people, normally in our morning time, I kept a spanking spoon in the cushion. Because we had some kind of discipline issue, our character issue, believe it or not, that would come up during our time together. It's at some point, not that I spanked people every day, that didn't happen.

But just the idea that we are in community. That's what community is. And so when we are in community, if things don't go well, like you think, you have not failed. You have just tripped over the gift of community. That's just what you, you've just discovered what community is all about.

So I just wanna encourage families that when they're thinking about this, it's not necessarily gonna match. Now, I think it's wonderful if you can do that, but I want to also, that can become a discouragement or kind of this idea that this is the way it should be every day.

- Yeah, and you're not getting a benefit if it doesn't look like that. That is absolutely not the truth. That is not the truth. I feel like we grew as a family, probably more through the mistakes that we made together than we ever did in those picture perfect moments.

And we remember the hard lessons that the Lord taught each of us and as a family taught us through the hard things and the things we did wrong the first or second or third time before God refined it. And so I also love the whole idea. You mentioned scribblers, the scribblers resource a couple of times.

And one of the easiest ways for young families to design their homeschool journey is with those scribblers verbs. And they can begin in that morning time together. If every day you pray together, play together, read together, explore together and serve together, it has been a good day. And you have done the work that God has set for you to do.

That's the easiest way to start, but it is the way of greatest impact for our little families. And I love Amy, one thing that you have said to me before, I really want our listeners to hear, morning time does not begin in the morning. When does the morning time begin?

That's right, it begins the night before. And let me explain why. First of all, your children function best when they have rest and sleep. And even as you're closing out the day, checking in with them, that they're not worried or struggling. Sometimes those quiet evenings are when you can settle people a bit and you get a handle on where they are.

My sons all played soccer. They were exhausted after games, so they needed to hydrate, they needed to shower, and they needed to get to bed. And we did not have electronics in our home, anywhere but our living room kind of thing. And so they rested. So getting your children in a place where they can really sleep and rest, they just need that.

And then for me, I remember a good story of when I was in junior high and I had to run this time, like you had to run a quarter mile is the amount of time you have, whatever. And I remember my coach was very empathetic because I was just a skinny little short girl.

And he said, "Okay, look, don't look at the finish line. Look past the finish line and run past the finish line because you tend to slow down as you get to the finish line." - Oh, good. - Yeah, wasn't that good? And so I passed, so yay. But I think about in our day, like we come to the finish line at the end of our day.

The kids are in bed. We're like, "Whew, it's been..." Take 15, run a little past that finish line. 15 minutes of just saying, "Okay, where are the social study books?" And put out the cereal bowls or put a big cup with a teabag there for you. Like, "Oh, I have my tea.

I'll be ready when I get up." Give yourself some time to prep for the next day. Put things where you think they need to go. If the homeschool room's in a little disarray, don't spend hours. Just stack them back up. Pick up some straight paper. Make sure the pencils are out.

To me, the hardest days were when I was playing catch-up all day long. Like, "Oh, I don't know where this is." - Absolutely. - And so keep it simple. Keep it simple. You're not making gourmet meal the next day. Just have things arranged where you can start. And I always started my day, and I had to get sleep, too.

So I was staying up too late and that sort of thing. And resting and then getting up. I always tried to get up somewhat before they did because it was not fun when they were beside my bed going, "Mommy!" - Why? Why? - I feel like I'm behind the eight ball.

As soon as that happens, it's like all bets are off for the day. - Yep, yep. So, yeah, night before, just give yourself, I would say, 15 minutes. Don't spend hours, of course. Get ready for the day and get to bed and get the children in bed and settle.

They don't have to be sleeping. Resting. Just resting. - But knowing that the day is done and we're just coming down. We have crested the hill and we're almost at the bottom now. - Yes, yes, yes. - That's great. That's great. These are such beautiful ideas. And I can already see and I feel our listeners seeing how all of this contributes to a great start to the day.

But I also want you to tell me how you feel that morning time really helps families develop a family learning rhythm. - Yes, I think that it develops a rhythm because it already establishes a rhythm. Like we have something important that we're about to do. We are preparing for that.

And we're sitting before the Lord and we're anticipating His work in our life. And then we're gonna move through the day because that set start and that set ending, that rhythm that we've established, you're not reinventing the wheel every day. That you go from morning time, we're gonna read together.

Now, what do you do next? Usually we did math in the morning. And then if people had their own spelling or that, we had a rhythm to the day that grew as they took on their own educational responsibilities. When they started in the upper challenges, I did not have to follow them around.

They had already had this idea of this is when I work and this is when I stopped working. And this is what I do in these meantime. This is how I order my day. I structure what projects are more important, what's due, what do I have every day I do.

I think that as you've established that habit of structuring the day and the ebb and flow, they have practiced that under your tutelage. And then over time, they take it on themselves. And I see that provides, like you said, security and rest. And they can also rest at the end of the day.

I am going to be content with what God has brought into my life today, because I've worked heartily as unto Him, and I've offered back to Him the fruit of my labor. Sometimes it's two talents, sometimes it's maybe 10, but He doesn't say that matters. He says, "Well done, well done, good and faithful." So I think helping them feel like the satisfaction of their work is part of what this offers too, because you can look at the day and go, "Oh, look, I completed a day." And that doesn't mean I completed the assignments perfectly or I did it.

It just means that I walked through the day faithfully and I did good work. There's a lot of satisfaction in that. And that only builds more as they take it on themselves. So I think it's a real gift that you can offer to your kids. I actually think it's your gift to your children.

- This has been really good. This helps, I think, us see that this morning time is a simple yet beautiful way to start the day. And so morning time is just a simple little thing, but morning time is also a bigger deal as we look at it as a time that sets the tone for our family's learning journey together.

So morning time starts us off well, but it allows us to continue along our journey with contentment and satisfaction and a lot of how-to's manage ourselves as we get older. So thank you, Amy, so much for this. Listeners, I hope you have been as blessed as I have been.

And I hope that your fall starts off in a beautiful, calm, exciting, and enriching way. And hey, I wanna mention this to you. If you have an outstanding morning time one day that you want to tell somebody else about, as an encouragement, we've got a way for you guys to share good morning time memories or other stories and accomplishments and events that you would be willing to share as a blessing to another family.

This is called Honorable Mention, Celebrating Together. And we're collecting your stories. So you can provide to us as much information as possible to completely tell the story of your homeschool happening. You share your story at classicalconversations.com/celebrate-together. Okay, classicalconversations.com/celebrate-together. And celebrate-together is all one word. Okay, we are collecting these stories to share the excitement of homeschooling.

And we would love to know what you are doing with your family at home. So you guys keep enjoying your mornings and afternoons and evenings together. And Amy and I will keep praying for you and we'll look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you, Amy. - Oh, thank you, Lisa.

It was fun. - Bye guys. (upbeat music) you you