Inside Our Homeschool Morning Menu

Hi friends and welcome to another wonderful school year! No matter where you are in your homeschool journey, I just want to let you know that I see you. I know this journey isn't always easy and if you're anything like me- maybe you're even wondering if you're cut out for this whole thing.

Let me take a quick second to allow my words to wrap you in a hug. If you're here, doing the research and trying to provide a positive and encouraging school experience for your kids then you're already doing much better than you think! And just remember, we're all working to do our best every single day. You can do this, but you need to figure out what works for you and your kiddos. Read some books, look over some blogs, and figure out the routine or rythym that works to help your family succeed! That's the secret for you to have a successful experience.

Okay so let's cut to the chase of this post and tackle the real reason you stopped by- morning menus. What are they? Why do they matter and what can you put inside? We're going to digest all of this in a super easy way to make sure that you leave here feeling equipped and ready to take your next step.

What is a Morning Menu?

Morning menus actually come from the Charlotte Mason practice for homeschool and include a variety of activities that are structured to promote self-awareness and learning. Think about a tri-fold plastic menu that you would see at a restaurant. It's the same type of thing, but inside are a bunch of activities to help your child start their day.

We've started doing our morning menu around breakfast time- before, during, or after we eat. By doing it this way, it allows our kids to wake up and play first. Personally, I don't want them to wake up and immediately feel like we have to jump right into a structured task. I prefer to give them the freedom to wake up and have play time while I make breakfast and get our table set up and ready for our morning menu time.

GET YOUR MENU HERE

Why Does this Matter?

A big pull for me to start using this practice in our homeschool this year is to create a rhythm and a routine- for myself and for them. If we have a full day of activities outside of the home, I like knowing that we sat down for at least 10-20 minutes to have an intentional conversation and learning time before going about our day. Routines and rhythms are really important to toddlers and it helps them to thrive in their day to day so as we enter a new school year, I wanted to be really intentional about setting up a routine first thing in our morning.

What's Inside the Morning Menu?

The beautiful thing about this is that you can make this your own and completely cater it to your child! My plan is to start with the basics at the start of the year and then have our morning menu evolve over the course of the school year. I also plan to create themed pages to go along with the holiday season or their birthday month, etc.

Here are some page ideas for you to build your morning menu:

• Morning Affirmations

• Morning Routine (brush hair, breakfast, change clothes, etc.)

• What's the Weather?

• What's the Season?

• I Can Count to _____

• My Name Is (learning their full name)

• This Is Where I Live (learning their address)

• Count the Cows (or tractors, dolls, etc. whatever they like)

• Trace the Line

• Monthly Calendar

• This is My Family (photos of family)

• Daily Prayer

And the best part is that you can cater your pages to the ages of your kiddos! I have two boys- ages 2 and 4- so their menus won't be the same and that's okay! We'll go through the menu together but when we get to the tracing sheet, Graham (my 2 year old) would have a basic "trace the lines" sheet where as Aspen (my 4 year old) would have a "trace the letters or numbers" sheet.

All of the pages are interactive and guided by me. We stay together on the same page and we wait for everyone to be done with the page before we move on to the next. Some pages like the "Daily Prayer" or "Count the Cows" may just be a guided page where we point to things or repeat the prayer/affirmation, etc. Other pages like "Trace the Line" or "What's the Weather" may require them to write on the menu with a dry erase marker. Which reminds me to tell you that if you use a dry erase marker with your menus, you'll want to wipe off the marker shortly after the morning menu time is finished. The plastic on the menu can be unforgiving and if the marker is left on for too long, it may be hard to wipe off.

If you like the idea of the morning menu, but are struggling with where or how to get started- let me reassure you that I have you covered! The same morning menu pages that I've created and use with my kiddos are available for you.

GET YOUR MORNING MENU PRINTABLES HERE

I'll be continuing to create and share more options for the morning menu activity pages as the school year continues on and as we go into the holidays so stay tuned! In the meantime, I hope you thrive in your homeschool experience and know that I am cheering you on from afar.

Now, go shine your light!

SB

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