Your Homeschool Morning Meeting: What, Why, & How
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Family meetings help preserve and promote your family culture. In the same way, having a homeschool morning meeting can help promote and protect your homeschool culture.
Your homeschool morning meeting will be unique to your family and even the season of life your family is in. However, here are some considerations as you set up your homeschool morning to be the foundation of each day.
For us, the morning meeting is the start of our daily homeschool schedule, whether it starts at 9 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. (or, if we’re having a Jammie morning, it could start at noon!).
We started these when all we had were little kids, and now even my graduates still talk to me for a few minutes over coffee each day about what’s going to happen in their day and their thoughts on it.
I love the foundation of open communication our daily meetings have led to over the years!
Why have a homeschool meeting each morning?
There are many reasons to start your days this way. And there are just as many ways to have it.
Your morning meeting can be over breakfast, or right after.
Your meeting can be short and sweet or longer.
You can incorporate morning basket time or current events or music or snuggles.
You can do it in your pajamas or dressed and ready for the day.
Homeschool Meeting As Daily Family Touchpoint
If you have a lot of kids in different grades (we have 8 kids, over all different grades and seasons of life from preschool to graduated), family meetings can be a way of brining everyone together.
You can use them as a way to keep everyone on the same page together, for at least part of the day.
Right now, our family meetings happen right after our Morning Time. Morning Time is a ritual we started more than a dozen years ago when our first child began homeschooling.
This way we’re all still together and they happen quickly.
In years past, our morning meeting happened over breakfast because everyone was in the same place at the same time, but these days we have it right before our Morning Time and everyone heads in their own directions.
You just make it work for you!
Homeschool Morning Meeting FAQs
Is this homeschool meeting the same as morning time or morning basket time?
Actually, no. Morning time, or morning basket time, is a little different.
Morning time was a concept created more than twenty years ago now, and one of the first things we started back when we began the homeschooling journey with our first child (now graduated).
Morning time is more academic; it’s the time you bring all your kids (whether one or a dozen) together and go over all the subjects that can be done together.
This usually focuses on virtues and the arts, but may also expand to a variety of topics such as nature, current events, and any other topical interests.
How long do homeschool morning meetings last?
Honestly, some days they are barely five minutes long. Others, they are 20. It partially depends on how large your family is and how much you have to discuss.
Our morning meetings cover four things each day, no matter what:
- The day’s schedule (who is going to be where and when)
- The day’s meal plan and who has what responsibility to help with each meal
- Any special thing happening that day (are we having company? working on a project?)
- Asking for everyone’s input, if they have it. What do they need help with that day? What is on their mind that they need to clear up to be able to focus on school and do well?
And then, if there are other things that seem apt, we cover them. Bigger topics such as planning a family vacation or birthday party happen at regular family meetings; this is just a quick touchpoint.
What if we’re not morning people?
Just have your homeschool meeting at the start of your day; if that’s noon, go for it!
What if I only have one child?
It’s still a great idea to have a meeting! You can share your plan for the day, ask for their input, and move forward. It’s a beautiful foundation, just like family meetings can be, your relationship as partners on this learning journey.
Is there a right way to do this (or a wrong one)?
Honestly, nope. There is no real right way – it’s whatever works for your family.
And the only wrong way to do it would be negatively. It’s never a great idea to start your homeschool harping on things your kids have done wrong or with frustration. That’s better handled at a teachable moment and one in which you can both speak safely and find resolution.
But other than that? Go for it!
We roll pretty informally, but you can have more regimen to it if you want.
We keep it fast, but for some families it may last longer.
Do we have to wait for a new semester to start?
The best time to start? Today! Or tomorrow if you’re reading this too late in the day. We’re only talking a five minute change in your day, m’dear. Do NOT overthink this.