Our Daily Morning Routine

     No doubt you have probably heard parents say how important routine is for children. Some parents stick to a very strict time schedule. Thier kids wake up at the same time (even if it means waking the children up). Their kids nap at the same time each day and go to bed at the same time. That works for some families, but I've found that a routine works better for me and my 3 littles. Although we still tend to do the same things at around the same time each day. I've found that if I stick to the same routine each day, my kids seem to behave better and are more compliant. This is probably due to the fact that they "know" what to expect each day. They have formed habits.

     Today I thought I would share how our morning routine goes. We follow this routine on weekday mornings. On weekends things usually go differently because daddy is home and we tend to lay in bed all together in the morning or take a longer time to eat breakfast.

     Since my youngest still takes 2-3 naps a day, I don't plan to go out of the house before his 1st nap. If I absolutely have to get a lot done before their mid-day nap, I will leave the house at the time of Zeke's 1st nap and let him sleep in the car for a bit. But most days I'm home from the time we wake up until after his 1st nap.

     Around 6:30/7am we wake up. Most days, by 7 am we are in the kitchen and I'm preparing breakfast. I'm not a morning person, but as much as I miss sleeping in, I do enjoy having an early start on our day. After breakfast we brush our teeth, use the restroom and change out of our pj's. After that, we have "praise and worship time". I started this routine with the intent of teaching myself and my children a habit of worshipping God and reading His word first thing in the morning. Technically it's not the very first thing we do, but I doubt my toddlers would be very attentive before being fed (=

     We start out Praise and Worship time by doing our daily calendar. I got this simple magnetic calendar from Amazon for $18  . When I used to work in a preschool (before having my own babies) one thing I found almost all the children enjoyed was doing a daily calendar. Since purchasing this one, I have also found that my 2 little ones also enjoy it. I think it's a great way to teach days of the week, numbers, months and how to recognize weather. Once we are done with it, I fold it back up so the magnets are out of reach. I added one Command Picture Hanging Strip on the back to be able to have it closed during the time we don't use it.

     After that, they each put a sticker over a printed calendar of June. I bought a small pack of stickers at the dollar tree and found the month template online. It's a simple step but they both enjoy it and I think it helps them with practicing fine motor skills.

And then we start our worship. I printed off a few bible verses from the year 2 homeschooling program ABC Jesus Loves Me and we sing them every day, adding a new verse each week. 

Then both of my children get to pick 2 song sticks from the jar. I got this idea from the 2-3 year-old children's church class in our church. We have most songs memorized already, but I do have a binder with the words to the songs, just in case. After we sing a few songs, I read them a couple stories from The Beginner's Bible. They are very short stories and don't take long to read. Both my children love when I read stories so that's why we read more than one each day. I usually read the stories of similar main characters in one day. So if there are 2 or 3 stories about David, I'll read them all in one day. 

     After reading the stories, I'll usually talk to the kids about what lesson we can learn from the story and then we pray about whatever lesson we learned. 

     And that's it (= most days it's somewhere between 15-20 minutes to go through the whole routine.