Morning Boards and Routine

When we have homeschool days we use a flexible routine. So, here is an example of what mornings look like in our family.

Our morning routine

My children are early risers, often before 6am, so I do allow an hour or so of TV in the morning. I am not a morning person and find that without the TV I wake up to fighting, destruction and mess which sets a terrible tone for the rest of the day.

Once I am up the TV goes off and my children eat breakfast and I make myself a coffee. My children know that NOTHING happens before mummy has had her morning coffee and some quiet time.

If the kids are playing something that looks productive then I allow them to continue respecting that children of all ages learn through play and I don't want to interrupt this process! This means that although we aim to start homeschool at 8:00am we are flexible and often won't begin until 9:00am (but generally no later).

I give my kids the 'warning' that it is 10 minutes until homeschool time and they are to begin their morning chores. These chores are simple and involve getting dressed, making their bed and doing a quick tidy of their bedrooms.

It is then time for their morning charts.

This is the morning chart for my 4 year old.

When I do his morning chart we being with some songs.

Days of the week song 

(tune of the Addams family theme song)

Day's of the week (click click) Day's of the week (click click)
There's Sunday and there's Monday,
There's Tuesday and there's Wednesday,
There's Thursday and there's Friday
and then there's Saturday...
Days of the week (click click)

 Months of the year song

(tune of 10 little Indian boys)

January, February, March and April
May, June, July and August
September, October, November and December
12 months makes one year

I then tell him what the day of the week is and ask him to find the day that begins with "F" etc.

This is the morning board for my 6yo. All he has to do is write the number / day on the calendar and write the day of the week and the date. I also put a memory verse or challenging words for him to recite each morning.

Every now and then I will get him to recite the "months of the year" poem.

30 days has September, April, June and November

All the rest have 31 except for February alone

Which has 4 and 24 'til leap year gives it one day more

For my 8yo we have moved away from the morning board to the calendar notebook.

This takes a little longer to do each morning but crosses over lots of curriculum areas. So far, DS8 is enjoying it!

Once these are completed which usually takes less than 10 minutes we are ready to begin our homeschooling day!

See more homeschool morning boards and routines.