NOTE: Some of the resources mentioned in this post are no longer available.
This summer, as we were beginning our school year, I had extensive Morning Time plans all made up utilizing the information on Ambleside. (If you’ve read my review of The Precious People (our main curriculum this year), you probably saw my mess of sticky notes that made up my Morning Time list.)
However, my plans were nearly impossible to follow! I kept going back to the website trying to figure out where I was, what I should be doing, and quickly tired of the chaos that was supposed to be our beautiful Morning Time.
I’ve always struggled to make Morning Time easy, and trying to do Morning Time with multiple ages is no small task, so when it started getting crazy, I almost gave up…again. BUT, suddenly The Homeschool Garden showed up in my inbox, and I was beyond excited with the prospect of having our Morning Time plans all set up for me!
There are a couple of options for The Homeschool Garden:
- Purchase individual month-long plans.
- Purchase a year-long membership (this is what I have).
The first plan is the Wildflower Morning Time plan.
If you purchase the membership, you can access the plans from an online dashboard, but they are all emailed to you as a download as well. If you only purchase an individual month, it will come as a download with everything you need.
Each month has a calendar with a daily Morning Time list. The lessons are short, and everything you need from the Art studies, to the biographies to the art tutorials are included. There is even a biweekly Tea Time that is fantastic!
Here is photo from our first Tea Time where we made Harvest Bars from The Precious People curriculum, and the Wildflower melon flowers from The Homeschool Garden plans.
Related post: Review of The Precious People
It has been wonderful to be able to mesh the two curricula, and I am certain The Homeschool Garden would easily mesh with any curriculum because it doesn’t require a lot of time and energy to implement. If you watch the video below, you’ll see how I have added in a few things – an online Shakespeare class, a simple Foreign Language lesson, and a Musical Theatre online class – because the lessons were short enough I could do that!
Related post: High School Shakespeare Made Easy
So, here’s a run down of how our day goes…
We all meet at the table, ages 3-17. We work through a day of The Homeschool Garden, and then move to a couple of things from The Precious People, including our current Read Aloud. Before the Bible lesson from The Precious People, I dismiss my older kids to their own Bible Study time, and then read to my younger ones. After that, they all move on to independent work like Math and Science.
Related posts:
How Teaching Textbooks Has Been Perfect for Our Homeschool
Our Apologia Science Curriculum with Multiple Ages
Morning Basket with Multiple Ages
I simply check off the day on the schedule as we go, even if it’s not the day we are doing that set of lessons. We homeschool 4 days a week, so I’m not doing these lessons on a Monday-Friday schedule, but that’s ok because by marking them off, I can see exactly where I am and move to the next lesson accordingly.
The Homeschool Garden Morning Time plans have been incredible, and I am excited to see what’s in store each month! (I already know that December’s study is going to be an Advent study! Yay!)
Melissa says
I am thinking about the Homeschool Garden Morning Time and wondering how long it take it do. I have six kids, 1yr-13yr, would that affect the time?
Amy says
The lessons are very short. I add in a lot of other things to our Morning Time, so it takes about an hour, but if you were just doing HGMT, you’re looking at 15-20 minutes max.