Homeschool Morning Time With All Littles | Interview with My Sister Jo

hi everyone it's Sherry from our life homeschooling where I share homeschooling encouragement for everyday moms I am super excited about what I have to share with you this week I got together for a play date with my sister Joe and we were able to sit down and talk all about homeschool morning time when you have all Littles Joe is a mom to four kids seven and under so she is right in the thick of it and she's going to be talking all about her goals in morning time what she does when she has interruptions and more just lots of exciting things for you especially those of you that are right in that spot where you have lots of little ones you definitely want to take a listen to this if you're new here I'm Sherry I'm a homeschool mom to 10 kids I've been homeschooling for 14 years I love coming on here every week encouraging you in the great work that you're doing in your homes I also want to let you know about a really great opportunity that's coming it launches May 28th and that that is the fill your cup bundle this is a bundle of resources ebooks courses printables that are all to encourage you as homeschool moms so you're not going to find um curriculum in this bundle or things that you can use with kids this is all about encouragement for homeschool moms and I've contributed a brand new product to this bundle that I can't wait to show you that's the new ebook rest for the weary homeschool mom in this book I have scripture advice encouragement quotes all meant to encourage you and to refresh your spirit so if you would like to get on the wait list for the fill your cup bundle I'm going to leave the link below the bundle is selling for $25 it's a great deal it's something that's only here for a short period of time and then it's gone so you don't want to miss this get on the wait list by clicking the link below Joe and I got together for a play and we had all of our kids so with mine I had nine here and she had four so that's total of 13 we had 13 kids here and we got together to talk for this interview I thought for sure we'd be interrupted but we made it all the way through which was really nice although I don't know some of you love the interruptions but we were able to get through the interview I'm so excited to share this with you let's dive in well we have a couple kids here we are here for a play date and we may have kids running in and out but I want to get started on this interview so why don't you start us off by introducing yourself and telling everyone What attracted you to homeschooling all right my name is Joe mury sher's my sister and I went to college and became a high school English teacher and I loved it I worked at a public school and I never planned to homeschool my kids uh until Co we were in DC and I didn't know anybody and everything shut down and we had had to home school cuz nothing was available uh so we took what we were already kind of doing at home and just gave it a little bit more of an edge um and a focus with our oldest and then I also because I was so lonely I helped launch a co-op there with moms who were also really lonely and I think because of just the community we built there and the extra time I got with my kids we quickly found ourselves just loving homeschool uh and it is hard and the reason I'm still sticking with it is I think because of this lady um she's always been my cheerleader and she kind of makes me realize that even when it's not going well that's not always that's not always the goal and to keep going and uh yeah here we are and that's something we were talking about before we got on camera was that you can have the best resources the best curriculum you can have a really supportive Co-op but sometimes I think there is just nothing like having knowing another Mom that's just a couple steps ahead of you so I know I had people like that in my life as well that were just ahead of me and I just kind of latched on to them and wanted to learn as much as I could from them because um I just I knew they had been there and they were going to help me just have that step up so let's talk a little bit about morning time because you have all Littles and that's a totally different ball game from what I'm in right now how do you prepare for a successful morning time the first thing I do is I wake up early I wake up as early as I can just to enjoy the quiet of the house um before they bombard me with questions and needs and problems and complaints uh there's a quote by Tony Morrison that I really like and it says um do your eyes light up when a child enters the room because that's what they're looking for and when my kids wake me up with complaints and needs and problems I my temper is already short and I don't like to start the day angry with my kids cuz there's like no light at the end of the tunnel it's just the beginning so I try to get up and I uh make myself a cup of coffee I read my Bible and I just get my heart ready for the day uh and then I like to do whatever I want for a good half an hour uh I read a book or I watch one of Sherry's videos um and by the time my first kid wakes up uh I greet them with a smile and they think that I've been up early waiting for them uh cuz kids are selfish um is true but I find if I start the day excited to see them and excited about what we're doing I think enthusiasm is half the battle um if I'm excited they get excited even if they don't know what's going on I'm just excited and they jump in and so um that's how I start and then I just practically speaking I have my morning basket on the table with all of our content in it I block off our we've got two sets of stairs I block both of those off I make sure the bathroom door's closed so that way when inevitably the baby needs to be put down uh to play I already know he can just go wherever he wants and there's no danger um and then that is that's we just jump in oh and then I I set a timer uh for them to just finish what they're doing finish their breakfast go get an activity from the closet and when that timer goes off they know to go to the table with their activity and we we start M yeah that can be I now that you say that I kind of remember how a timer is helpful when they're all little I think I did that sometimes too so walk us through a typical morning time in your home school like on just a regular morning what does it look like it looks really bad it looks really bad I think watching her morning time would convince someone not to homeschool um but it's good it's so chaotic so I give the baby a snack uh even if he doesn't need one I just want him still for the start and then the kids have their activities um but then like someone picked an activity that's too hard for them so then they think they need help or they want to trade or someone's trying like stie and Kim always try their buddies and they they try to share their activity which means they're chatting the whole time and I have to convince them that they're not allowed to share so then I solved that problem but then the baby's done with his snack and he wants to get down so the snack did no good and then we're not even like halfway through the first subject um it's just that a lot it's it's con interruptions yes yes but we try and view it as as training so we do um we're a classical conversations family so the majority of our um work for all of homeschool is is memory work so morning time's important for us cuz morning time is about memorizing and repeating and reciting at least for our family and so um we do scripture reading we're trying to read through psalms together um we do a couple poems by shell Silverstein that's what we did this year just as a a nice fun uh experiment in poetry funny so kids they love it they love it uh and then what else do we do well we sing Our hym of the month which I really enjoy and I it's come in handy in a lot of different ways and then we jump in and we do um CC we do our classical conversations review work for the week um our my big habit now is I tell the kids you can't interrupt until we're done with one subject and we move on to another one and so a lot of times like we're reading our Bible and I get an interruption and I have to say like six times nope you have to wait till we're done with Bible reading nope you have to wait you have to wait you have to wait but we're getting there we're getting there um and so that's kind of how it goes It goes really slowly um and we hopefully make it through and it takes about 30 minutes um but if sometimes it's so bad we give up I'd rather I'd rather give up than lose my temper um cuz it's supposed to be a joy so we just give up when it's so bad yeah um so how do you handle I guess that kind of answers the question how do you handle interruptions how do you determine like when you would give up or when you're just going to keep keep going um for the most part the the the small interruptions it's just the reminder you got to wait till we're done with this subject you got to wait but the big ones um if my if Cam my three-year-old if he just asks can I go play I always just say yes go if he wants to go and he's interested in something else he's just a little kid for so long um and free play is really important and my kids are super needy so if they're outright asking like can I go somewhere where I don't need you the answer is yes please go um and then you can have more focused time with Sadie and Kellen the older ones yeah and they stick around they're they're they're almost all trained up for morning time um with the baby if he's whiny at the at the little high chair I just he just goes and he wrecks everything I put him down and he's got a cabinet all to himself and he doesn't use it he wrecks the things that I don't want him to have um but as that's just the way it is um but yeah if they don't want to be there I don't make them be there if they don't realize that they don't want to be there and they just keep interrupting but not asking to go um I try and use it as an advantage I kind of threaten them I like do you need to go and play somewhere else um and they're just like no no cuz they want to stay and that's kind of where I try and guide them is um like they don't want to be kicked out of the club yeah uh and even though that makes it harder that's the goal is for them to want to stick around and their behavior has to meet a standard in order to be allowed to stay so that's what we kind of hopefully aim for yeah find out what's going to incentivize them I remember so many mornings when my kids were all little that there were so many distractions I just thought someone like everyone else would have quit by now and sometimes we did quit but you you just feel like you have so many distractions that you think you're making no progress but then you realize after time that you are so it's worth it I think to just to keep going and yeah to find ways to make it work if that means letting the little ones go if that means um like whatever you have to do even sometimes I would just use a screen for one of my little ones just so we could have that few that little bit of 15 20 minutes to get through with my older kids um but just the daily consistency of doing it you you feel at the time like you're not making any progress but you are and um you can see that at the end of the year and maybe not at the end of the year but maybe at the end of like 3 years when they start getting older and they remember all those things and they come back to them yeah yeah what is your primary objective in morning time so if you could just kind of like lay it out what is the main thing that you you want to get done even if everything else falls apart um for us I think we're so young and it's about just my kids wanting to be there I want them to want to be there I want us to want to enjoy the time together and if we aren't enjoying it and if we can't do it well or at least if doing it well doesn't even seem like it's ever going to happen then I just feel like what's the point so I I want us to enjoy the time together um one of the big reasons I homeschool is cuz I like slow mornings and if morning time is the way we start our day and we all hate it uh what's the point so I want us to enjoy being there but on the flip side I don't want to have this lofty idea of what it should look like that I can't keep up with it so I don't wake up super early to have activities ready for them that are really creative and then bu October and burn out and I'm done um and I also don't want them I don't want them to be entitled uh like just right serve me my activity I'm ready and if I don't have it then they're terrible I want them to be independent and I don't want them to expect to be entertained I want them to entertain themselves and figure it out so I I want to have it be sustainable and something that I can realistically do all year long on good days on bad days when someone's not napping when someone woke up too early I want it to be reachable every day that's those are the two big objectives yeah that's really good I think too just because it's the long game you're playing the long game