Cottage School “Morning Time”

“One thing leads to another” could be aptly applied to our opening routine at cottage school weekly. When we began a couple of years ago, our opening routine was to gather the kids and say, “Time for science. Sit down!” Then we added an opening prayer and a few announcements/instructions. At the beginning of this year, we decided to be serious about opening time, so we started with quiet reading in the living room (while some moms would prepare for class) and doing presentations. Each family took a week to present on a rotating schedule. Soon after that, we added singing a hymn, which led to including a brief discussion of its history and meaning. And this semester, we added a devotional lesson from “Young Peacemakers” (a post on that book is to follow later) to address conflict resolution among the kids. Like “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” our opening time has become much more than we originally planned. It has grown into a sweet and rich way to start our weekly time together.