Collection -- Our Morning Circle Time

 Our mornings have been really lovely this semester. I tried to change things up a bit and I'm really enjoying the flow of the day.  Usually ED and I are the first ones up.  Since the weather has cooled down and we still haven't turned on the furnace, I have been lighting a fire in our wood stove in the homeschool room.  ED and I snuggle up and read while I have my morning coffee.

Once the other kids have gotten up and eaten breakfast, we gather together and have collection together.  This has been a wonderful addition to our school day.  When I call out "collection!" I often hear, "Oh good, I like collection!"

So what is this? In general we

• The kids go check the temperature on the thermometer outside and write down the temperature in their student calendars.
• We sing songs (right now we're learning some American patriotic tunes).
• I give a presentation (history or science) or we read a book together
• We do an activity together (like Harold and his circulatory system). This week, for example, we've been doing various activities to learn about the brain.
• We do German together.

German: We started out with basic greetings such as: Good morning. How are you? What's your name? We've learned the numbers and are now working on 20-100.  We've learned the colors. We've learned lots of animals.  We are now learning objects around the room.  The kids really enjoy this as they are often up moving, touching, and things like that.  I don't use a curriculum, though I have the advantage of having taught German to high school students for a couple of years and having taught English as a Foreign Language in Hungary when I was in the Peace Corps. I try to speak only in German and try to mime a lot. The kids surprised their grandparents with how much they had learned (I forgot to mention that we added that in this year!) Here is a post I did a while ago about some of the German resources and websites I use.

After collection is over the kids get started on their own work for the day math, spelling, handwriting, piano, and reading. Sometimes they go back and work things related to what we covered in collection that morning.