I have two bright and happy ready to go morning children and one curmudgeon who for the first two years of his life made all our mornings a little rough. He wouldn’t sleep in even when he was tired, but he also wouldn’t be happy about waking. He was simply unpleasant in the mornings.
One day while he was whining and moaning, I sat down on the floor and began to read a book to the other two in the hopes the storm would soon pass. Within a few minutes of starting to read, my morning grump calmed himself and crawled right up into my lap to hear the remainder of the story. I was amazed, but so very grateful to have found a quick and simple way to bring peace to our mornings.
This trick worked so well and for so long that my kids have declared this special story time “Books Before Breakfast”.
Books Before Breakfast
Books Before Breakfast is a tradition that although born of necessity has quickly made one of the hardest parts of my day one of the most rewarding. It’s also become a wonderful coping tool for other times of the day, not just the morning.
I remember one day in particular when we were having a rough moment in the kitchen. We were making cookies when the flour spilled, the vanilla bottle cracked into the sink, and the youngest (at the time) was pulling banana peels back out of the trashcan to eat them. It was rough. There were tears and snarls from all of us. My eldest ran and grabbed a book and asked me if we could please, oh please do a Books Before Breakfast even though it was the middle of the afternoon. Books became comfort, love, and peace for all of us.
Stories in Our Homeschool
As our family has grown and moved into the homeschool years, books remain a fabulous, calm way of spending time together.
Stories continue to offer connection, entertainment, and new perspectives. The learning that was once mostly incidental is now demonstrably obvious, yet still enjoyable.
Sonlight books from the preschool and prekindergarten curriculum packages first purchased for my eldest continue to entertain all my children.
As my daughter enters kindergarten she takes her love for Sonlight stories with her.
The read-alouds, history, and science books seamlessly fit into our days.
One of the biggest questions I get asked is, “How do you fit all that reading into your day?”
And with three small children and another on the way it is true that this Mama reads aloud a lot, but I enjoy it and so do they!
6 Main Ways We Incorporate Sonlight Reading Into Our Day
Here are the 6 main ways we include Sonlight reading in our homeschool day.
Bible Every Morning
Books Before Breakfast transitioned into Bible Time in the mornings. Every morning, including the weekends, the kids get up, go the bathroom, sometimes get dressed, and join me on the floor of the bedroom where I sit and read a Bible excerpt. For kindergarten, we are working our way through “Egermeier’s Bible Story Book.” The kids respond well to the stories and both my five year old and almost four year old are eager to try to answer the questions at the end of the book.
The Sonlight schedule calls for a few pages each day, which sometimes encompasses one story and sometimes includes two or three. We stick to reading one story every day, no matter the length. It’s the everyday part that works best for us. This is a simple routine that the kids expect and look forward to every morning. As a result we are often farther ahead on our Bible reading than any other area, with the possible exception of our read-alouds, which we do anywhere and everywhere.
Morning Basket
Morning time has long been regarded by homeschoolers as the best time to get the day started on the right foot. Pam Barnhill, one of my favorite bloggers, devotes a large amount of her blog and podcasts to morning time. She describes morning time as a chance to focus on the beauty of the day and has tons of suggestions and plans to help you create Your Morning Basket.
We have a morning time basket and in that basket we have our current read-aloud, some seasonal books, art materials, and an occasional extra special game, book, or activity. We routinely read our history during this time. Currently Sonlight selections from Living Long Ago: Everyday Life Through the Ages and Usborne Internet-Linked Children’s Encyclopedia are staples. We also just completed Adventures in Ancient Greece, which the kids loved.
Poetry Tea Time
I first learned of Poetry Tea Time from Julie Bogart at Brave Writer. She has an amazing website devoted to cultivating a love of language. When I first began including poetry tea time into our homeschool I had some difficulty finding poetry selections that were enjoyable for my kindergartener as well as her younger siblings. Most of the selections were culturally above their understanding. When Sonlight arrived, I was delighted to find two books perfect for including in our poetry tea time: The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose and my kids absolute favorite, The Llama Who Had No Pajama. We have poetry teatime almost every Tuesday.
Quiet Time
We have quiet time everyday for at least an hour. This downtime allows the youngest to nap and for me to get a few chores done or complete some reading and writing. The two older kids spend their time engaged in quiet games, puzzles, or looking at picture books.
Before quiet time begins each of my kids is allowed to pick out a book. If it’s a chapter book I will read one chapter of their selection. Although the kids frequently choose a book from the Sonlight shelf, I too get to pick a book. On the rare instances they don’t choose one of the Sonlight books, I will do so and complete another chapter from our read-aloud or a section from our science book.
Story Time
The kids love and often ask for story time. This can be anytime, but often occurs when they are tired or have come in from playing hard outside. I do my best to honor their requests for story time, since they think of it as a fun privilege and not as a homeschool necessity. They are happiest to complete read-alouds during this time, but we have also read science or history stories depending on current interests. This is also how we accidentally completed reading The Box Car Children and My Father’s Dragon all in one day.
Bedtime
Typically, I reserve preschool and pre-k reading for bedtime. My eldest enjoys rereading these stories during this time. We often complete read-alouds and we have read through the Bibles recommended for preschool and pre-kindergarten twice simply by completing one story a day. Yes, we read the Bible twice a day and the kids are learning so much!
My children also get a small amount of time before lights out to read independently. None of them are strong independent readers yet, but I have found that they frequently use this time to look at Sonlight books and retell themselves the stories that they have connected with the most.
Do You Only Read Sonlight Books?
No, we don’t just read Sonlight books, but our choices in books are often heavily influenced by what we are covering with Sonlight.
It is not uncommon for our library request list to feature several books focused on topics we are currently covering or have covered with Sonlight in previous weeks. For instance, when covering hurricanes with Sonlight we picked up books like The Magic School Bus – Inside a Hurricane and Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina. When we started investigating volcanoes our library list included Pompeii: Buried Alive! and Dear Katie, the Volcano is a Girl.
Sonlight encourages the exploration of additional resources. They aren’t needed, but encouraged when your children have an interest. Local and current events are wonderful supplements that are easy to incorporate with Sonlight’s materials. Newsela.com is a great resource for child appropriate material covering current events. Hurricane Irma and the earthquake that severely damaged Mexico are two examples we have recently used to further our understanding of Sonlight material.
Sonlight has made transitioning into a homeschool family an easy and enjoyable journey. By capitalizing on our love of reading, we are also building a family culture that embraces a love of learning. The books are an excellent beginning that spur interest and excitement about the world around us!
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Happy Learning!
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