Mornings are the rudder for the day and we use a morning menu and morning basket to start our day. Since reading the book Morning Time: A Liturgy of Love by Cindy Rollins, the way we start our day has changed. Our day now starts with a snippet of time we call morning time. In her book, Cindy describes morning time like this, “It is capturing the hours of your day before they flit away. It is making sure the most beautiful things happen first. It is impossible to regret that.”
Cindy offers many ideas to incorporate in to Morning Time for all ages. Ideas include learning scripture, hymns, poetry, and studying art. Morning time is one of my favorite things to talk about for many reasons. It is our time for connection, it starts our day off in the right direction before the world and commitments start tugging at us, and it is a great time to incorporate a few enriching learning opportunities. But this post is specifically about one component I love to incorporate in our morning time and that is a morning menu.
What is a Morning Menu?
A morning menu in our home is just a term for a way that I incorporate learning in to our homeschooling. The morning menu is a fun way for presenting some of the repetitive things that are part of our morning time routine. I use a restaurant style tri-fold menu to display and protect pages that we use every day in our morning time. Our morning menu currently has a memory verse, Galatians 5:22-23, ABC alphabet, Hymn to learn and sing, daily weather chart, and name practice.
These menu covers are transparent, but also work great with dry erase markers. So a name tracing worksheet works perfectly inside one of the pages. The same goes for our weather chart for tracking daily weather. My son is able to circle the weather using a dry erase marker and it simply wipes clean with a towel for the following day.
I keep our morning menu inside our morning basket, which I set out every night before heading off to bed. You can read more about what is inside our morning basket here.
What is Inside a Morning Menu?
I take it you are here because you are interested in incorporating a Morning Menu or new ideas in to your morning time basket. The morning menu is great because it allows for things to be easily switched out to protect the pages, opposed to laminating sheets. The menu folds up neatly and goes inside the morning basket easily. The best part is, the pockets allow for a creative way to learn.
The cover of our menu always holds a memory verse to learn together throughout the entire month. You can purchase a set of 13 memory verses here in my shop to print and include in your morning menu. Each page is a memory verse with beautiful watercolor clipart that makes any morning menu appear appealing and neat.
The next page in our morning menu is a weather tracking page. This is a simple way to observe the weather for the day and discuss temperature and other elements of the weather. We use a dry erase marker to circle the prompts on the page. The marker easily wipes away when we clean up for the day.
We then turn the page in our morning menu for a Names of God Alphabet that I downloaded for free from Stories Begin at Home. Steph offers an abundance of free resources. We are currently using the page to learn the alphabet and letter basics.
The back page of our morning menu is a name practice sheet that I downloaded for free from Create Printables. Friend, if you are looking for some amazing printables for your kids to learn how to write their name, this website is it. You can create custom name tracing pages for free for your kids. It has been through this amazing site that I have been able to help my 4 year old practice writing not only his name, but the names of those people he loves most. He has been fascinated with learning how to write “Grammy” and is brother’s name.
Morning Menus for Preschool at Home
Sometimes I think we underestimate our gifts and ability for homeschooling our children, especially in those early years when we are being inundated with suggestions for how or what our kids should be learning. Morning time, morning menus, and our morning basket have provided a simple routine and rhythm for our homeschool preschool.
The morning menu alone offers simplicity. Some days there isn’t a craft to go with our story and somedays this Mama just doesn’t have a clear direction on what we will be learning. I know I can always lean on our Morning Menu that is nestled nicely in our morning basket. At minimum our day begins with reading that memory verse on the cover together. It is God’s Word that begins our day every day.
I hope this post was helpful for you to learn about a Morning Menu and what it can mean for your family. The beauty of the morning menu is that is completely customizable. You can incorporate the ideas I shared above or anything you feel fits for your family. Consider browsing my freebie page that holds so many great, free printables you and your family can use at home.
