How to Set Up a Morning Menu For Your Homeschool
Have you heard of a morning menu as it pertains to homeschooling? Well, I decided to look into it for this year and give it a try. Let me show you what I learned and how you can easily set up a morning menu for your homeschool as well.
I’ve done morning work for years with my kids so the concept is not new. However, the slight twist is that the pages are put into a four-page menu.
Yes, a restaurant-styled menu. Those thick black framed ones that can withstand the traffic of hundreds of hungry customers and still be ready for the next use. Sound appropriate for kids, right?
Alternative Menu Assembly Options
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You don’t have to use a restaurant menu, although, its very affordable and durable. However, there are other options as well. Let me give you all the options and links to resources to put together a morning menu for your homeschool.
- Four-Page Restaurant Menu (pack of two)
- One inch Three-Binder and Heavy Duty Page Protectors
- Laminating machine and thermal laminating pouches
Two Ways to Use Your Morning Menu
The morning menu can be used in a couple different ways. It can be filled with independent work like name writing practice, weather charting, and copy work OR it can be filled with pages that would be helpful for a family-styled learning such as hymn lyrics, composer study, or calendar skills.
Essentially, you can tailor the morning menu to fit your homeschool style and family preferences.
For our family, I like to fill the morning menu with daily practice that my kids can do on their own.
What to Put Into Your Morning Folder
Now for the fun part, morning menu pages! You can make your own, find printables, or get a pack from Etsy. Here are some ideas of things you can put into your child’s homeschool morning menu:
- name writing
- address/phone number
- calendar (date, week days, months, seasons)
- weather charting/moon phases
- monthly info (birds, gems, flowers)
- colors, rainbow
- shapes
- number of the day
- number and letter tracing (print or cursive)
- poetry
- composer study
- character/habit training
- picture study
- song lyrics
- copy work
- nature study
- mad-libs
- bible (memory verses, memory work)
- catechisms
Premade Printable Morning Menu Pages
I have made some easy-access, printable morning menu pages. And you can find these resources in my Etsy store. Although these practice pages are designed with specific months in mind, you can easily use them for other months as well.
Printable Morning Menu Pages
Quick Morning Menu Q & A
1. What is a morning menu for homeschooling?
A morning menu is a selection of material that your student practices each day. It’s called a morning menu, because you can slip the pages into a menu sleeve and your kids can use a dry erase marker to practice their pages each day. A morning menu is great for independent or family-style practice in the areas of math, language arts, handwriting, poetry, nature study, Bible, and art.
2. How do you make a morning menu?
Using a four-page menu, 3-ring binder, or laminated pages you choose selections that you would like your child to practice every morning. The idea is to put the pages into a clear cover so your child can use a dry erase marker over the top of the page, therefore making it a reusable resource.
3. What do you put in a morning menu?
You can select any material for your morning menu. These items can include practice with name writing, days of the week, seasons, copy work, moon phases, number of the day, skip counting practice, memory work…the possibilities are endless.
