Here is your "wake-up time" and here is when
school lessons start. Let's talk about this part of your morning. Welcome to the Simply Charlotte Mason podcast. I’m Sonya Shafer. We talk a lot about your school schedule and
how to make it work for you and your students. But what about that block of time before school
starts? That part of your morning can have a big impact
on your school day. If breakfast is pleasant, chores get done,
and the children gather in good time to start lessons, that atmosphere can overflow into
the lessons themselves and give you good momentum. But if breakfast is late because you have
no idea what to do about it, and the children dawdle over their chores, and you feel like
you are herding cats to try to round everybody up and get them into the living room for school
sometime before noon, that mood can also overflow into lesson time. It's hard to overcome a sputtering, haphazard
start to the day. So let me give you five tips for your mornings
before lessons commence. Think of these as ideas to help you and your
children enjoy a smooth start that will carry you into school time with a calm and happy
spirit. 1. Start the night before. "Wait! That's cheating!" you might protest. "We're talking about a smooth morning, not
the night before." But it can be really helpful to think about
your day in the same way that Scripture does. The Bible often talks about "evening and morning,"
starting with the night before. For thousands of years, the Jewish Sabbath
has started, not at sunrise on Saturday, but at sundown on Friday evening. And if you start thinking about your day in
those terms, it will give you an advantage. It makes sense to plan and prepare for your
day, then rest up for it, then carry out your plan. So try approaching your morning in that way. Take 15 minutes the night before to decide
what you're going to have for breakfast and to do any prep work that needs to be done. Check your calendar to see if you have any
outside appointments or commitments that will affect your morning. And glance at your school plans and make sure
you have everything you will need for them. That's it. Just 15 minutes the night before can give
you such a great head start on your morning! In fact, I challenge you to set a timer for
15 minutes this evening and see how much you can get done in that amount of time with full
attention. (You may be surprised.) Set yourself up for a calmer morning by doing
that little bit of preparation the night before. 2. Set an alarm. If you tend to sleep in later than you should,
and you wake up feeling defeated already, consider setting an alarm to help you rise
early enough so you feel prepared for what is ahead. But, first, let me encourage you to make sure
you are getting to bed at a decent time to get enough sleep, so you can function optimally
in the mornings. One of the blessings of homeschooling is that
it eliminates the draining routine of waking up in the dark, exhausted and groggy, every
morning and prying yourself out of bed so you don't miss the bus. Do you remember those days? How many years did we have to do that when
we were growing up? It is not a pleasant way to start the day. So I am very thankful that homeschooling gives
us the option to wake up gradually, if needed, or even to push our start time back some mornings
if everyone was up late the night before. We have such freedom as homeschoolers: we're
not tied to class bells or tardy slips. But let's be careful that we don't go to the
other extreme. Homeschooling is not an excuse to sit up late
every night and stay in our pajamas all day. We should be using the freedom we have to
serve our family well, not to encourage sloppy habits. Yes, sometimes the situation calls for flexibility. Absolutely. But be careful not to use that flexibility
as an excuse for becoming lax. Or worse, for robbing your children (and you)
of much-needed sleep. I remember once in high school I was staying
up late and getting up early as a rule and thinking that it wasn't affecting me. Then one evening I went out to eat with my
parents and another couple, who were friends of theirs. As we sat at the table in the restaurant,
my parents and their friends started talking about other mutual acquaintances whom I had
never met, so I didn't have much interest in their conversation. The next thing I knew, I woke up and caught
myself falling off the chair. I had fallen asleep in the middle of a meal! Your body has a way of telling you when it's
not getting enough sleep. Pay attention to what it is saying. Sleep is so important for functioning at your
best! I realize that during some seasons of life,
you have no choice. When you have a baby who doesn't sleep through
the night yet, it's going to be a challenge. But I just want to encourage you not to buy
into the idea that feeling exhausted and sleep-deprived is a badge of honor. It's not. Sleep is a gift from God. Adequate sleep can actually help us to problem-solve
in our home schools, to read the faces of our children so we have insight into what
they are thinking, to help us create an atmosphere of peace and love and grace, and to be at
our most productive level as we go through our morning and our entire day. Why would we intentionally neglect that gift? If you have the choice—and most of us do,—make
sure you're getting enough sleep. (And by the way, while we're talking about
enough sleep, let me just throw in a reminder that most kids need more than eight hours
of sleep. If your children are perpetually cranky or
lethargic or struggling to pay attention, it might be their bodies' way of letting you
know that they need more sleep.) OK, have I said enough about getting enough
sleep as the prerequisite to this tip? It's important. This tip probably should read "Get enough
sleep and set an alarm." When I recommend setting an alarm for yourself,
I'm not telling you to cut back on your sleep. I'm recommending that you shift your sleeping
hours, so that you still can get enough sleep but also rise at a time that will give you
a little head start to the morning. I hate the feeling of getting up and feeling
behind right from the start. Then I feel like I'm playing catch-up all
day long. That's not a pleasant way to go through the
day. So maybe instead of sleeping from midnight
to 8:00, you shift it back an hour and start going to bed at 11:00 and getting up at 7:00. You're still getting eight hours, but you'll
be waking up an hour earlier in the morning and giving yourself time to prepare for your
day. I'm not telling you what time to get up; that's
a personal choice based on your unique family's circumstances and family culture. I'm simply saying that getting up early enough
to feel prepared for your day is a whole lot better than feeling like you've been thrown
into the deep end as soon as you open your eyes. So consider setting an alarm to help you get
in the habit of entering the day more calmly and intentionally prepared. That habit will certainly make for a smoother
morning. 3. Post a chore chart. Of course, it doesn't have to be a chart;
you might have a list of responsibilities instead. But make sure every child in your household
knows what he or she is responsible to do every morning. Posting those chores does two things: (1)
It helps the children know what your expectations are, and (2) It eliminates your having to
remind them what to do every morning. It transfers the responsibility onto their
shoulders and gives them great practice in applying the student motto: I am, I can, I
ought, I will. If your children are not used to chores or
personal responsibilities, you will need to take some time to get those habits in place. Don't just throw a list at them and expect
them to know how to handle it. Take some time during the afternoons, after
lessons are done, or take time on the weekends to teach one chore. Show them slowly and carefully what they are
to do. Let them practice. Any chore or responsibility that you want
your child to learn can be taught with a simple 5-step process:
I do it and you watch me. I do it and you help me. You do it and I help you. You do it and I watch you. You do it and I inspect it. How quickly you move through that process
will depend on the particular chore and the child. It might take a few afternoons or weekends
to get one up to speed, but don't rush it. The time that you are investing now will be
repaid many times over. At our house, we got up and got dressed, then
met for breakfast. After breakfast, the children were responsible
to do their chores, including brushing teeth, making their beds, and some of them cleaned
up the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher with the breakfast dishes. Kitchen duty was usually rotated between the
three meals every week. You don't have to run your morning that same
way, but just having those chores posted where everyone could see them made our mornings
run much smoother. 4. Give little ones attention first. If you have a toddler or a preschooler, spend
time one-on-one with her while the older ones are doing their assigned chores. That individual attention will help immensely
when, later, you want her to play alone for a bit during a lesson. And when I say "one-on-one time," I don't
mean drilling the child on her ABCs or 123s! This should be a play time or reading books
time or whatever helps your child feel loved. Give her your full attention; make this a
special time. When you take the time to "fill up her love
cup" first, she won't feel neglected or abandoned when, later in the morning, you ask her to
entertain herself so you can work with her older siblings on their schoolwork. Obviously, this "together time" isn't a magic
solution to all behavior problems for the whole day. You will still need to train her and practice
playing quietly during school time, but that focused attention given first will go a long
way toward a smoother morning. 5. Create a morning playlist. Once breakfast is done and the children scatter
to do their chores, how do you regather everyone in a timely manner to get lessons started? If you are truly going to help cultivate that
habit of personal responsibility and encourage your children to pay attention to their chores
and get them done without dawdling, you don't want to walk the halls and check the rooms,
nagging and reminding and prodding everyone to be ready on time. That behavior only sets up a habit of depending
on you to make sure they get done. Well, here is an idea that will leave the
responsibility on the shoulders of the children while still getting everyone gathered when
it is time to start schoolwork—and without any hollering. Create a playlist of a few songs and make
it a part of your regular morning routine. If the playlist is ten minutes long, start
playing it ten minutes before you want everyone gathered for schoolwork. Let the children know that when they hear
the music, it's time for them to finish up and get to the living room (or table or wherever
you want them to gather). It will take only a day or two for them to
figure out which song is the last one and to adjust their speed accordingly. By making the play list ten minutes or fifteen
minutes long, you are giving them enough time for a heads-up, to finish up what they are
doing, and to get to the schoolroom. Then you have only to apply an appropriate
consequence for any who are not in their places when the music stops. Of course, you don't have to use a playlist,
per se. You could use a bell or some chimes, ringing
them once 5–10 minutes before lessons begin and then once again when it is time to start. But think about how much music can affect
us. If you select songs that lift the spirit,
energize the body, and guide the mind on the right path of thinking, you will help set
up a great atmosphere for your lesson time! One mom who uses a playlist like this told
me that she picked two of her personal favorites for the last two songs in the set. Somehow hearing those two songs in the morning
helps her start the school day in a good mood. And that's worth a lot! Use the same playlist for a while—long enough
for everyone to know when they are to be in their places,—but feel free to change it
every term (or every month, if you want to) just to keep it fresh. Those are my five tips to help you have a
smooth morning leading up to lesson time. How about you? Do you have any other tips that you would
like to add? Leave a comment and let's help each other
get off to a great start every day!
