Morning meeting in our home has gone through some major changes and overhauls through the year. We’ve found that sometimes it doesn’t work for us in the morning.
Nick has to change his work schedule on a moment’s notice – one day he may be home in the morning, another day he’ll be working. So our schedule revolves around his schedule. When he’s home we like to spend time together as a family.
So most of the time Morning Meeting doesn’t happen in the morning.
Afternoon Meeting
We are not early risers (again, it follows Nick’s work schedule) and we are slow to get moving in the morning, though I do try to get up and get some work done in the morning.
Our school day begins at 9am. TJ is generally awake and alert by that point. She starts her morning with math, which can take from 30 minutes to 1 hour (depending on the lesson and her level of dawdling).
From 10am-11:30am we cover our rotating content subjects (history, science, and interest-led weeks). I’ll read aloud, TJ will do some reading and writing assignments or other work, and then we are done for the morning.
At 1pm, TJ reads for 30 minutes and then we have our ‘Afternoon Meeting’ time. TJ reads a chapter from her Bible, we recite our memory verse for the term and read about a virtue (see our list of Morning Meeting resources).
Then I’ll read aloud and TJ works on a lapbook or draws. Sometimes I try to squeeze in some Shakespeare, picture study, poetry, or music. I try to keep our meeting time to 30 minutes or so. Following that we go through the subjects that we work on together or anything I need to go over with TJ like Latin or grammar.
After our meeting, TJ gets to work on the remainder of her daily assignments and I try to have our day wrapped up by 4pm.
What’s the point of Morning Meeting with an only child?
Many people might ask why I bother calling that time ‘Morning Meeting’ (or Afternoon Meeting for us). I can certainly see the point of a daily meeting if you have a houseful – it’s the perfect time to gather all the kids together and focus on some subjects as a family. While I might not have the houseful of kids, there are still some things that get left out or overlooked (poetry and picture study come to mind). We’re good at covering the basics but what fun would our day be without a bit of art and music?
A daily meeting time is the perfect opportunity to add in those moments of beauty and goodness. Even if you have an only child.
I encourage you to look at your own homeschool day and think of those topics and subjects that you’d love to get to but never seem to have time for. Those are probably things you could do in little bits during a morning (or afternoon!) meeting time – with a houseful of kids or just one.
Want to take a look at a few more Morning Meetings?
My friends Sara at Classically Homeschooling and Chelli at The Planted Trees are giving readers a glimpse of what Morning Meetings look like in their home.
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