You heard of the magical tradition of morning time. You dreamed of mornings full of goodness, truth, & beauty other moms told you about. Immediately you knew you wanted to put it into practice.
And then you…
– nevermind you had no idea what you were looking for
– nevermind the struggle to realize someone else’s vision of morning time
– nevermind they never got used
– nevermind the overwhelming scope of options
-nevermind getting them engaged
the Gathering Placemats are curated for you! Just buy, print, & share with your kids!
the Gathering Placemats are filled with fun facts, delightful poetry, & simply silly jokes to surprise and delight your kids
the Gathering Placemats include Bible verses & favorite hymns to share with your kids
the Gathering Placemats feature large, gorgeous prints of some of the world's most esteemed art
the Gathering Placemats ask questions to get the conversation going around your kitchen table
Each set of Gathering Placemats includes 4 placemats with:
The front of each placemat in the set is the same, featuring the hymn, a poem, & a Bible verse. Each back is different with various boxes of interest for kids (& adults).
The Fall Gathering set includes:
Get 12 Gathering Placemats when you purchase the Fall Gathering!
Each set of Gathering Placemats includes 4 placemats with:
The front of each placemat in the set is the same, featuring the hymn, a poem, & a Bible verse. Each back is different with various boxes of interest for kids (& adults).
The 2021-2022 Gathering Placemat set includes:
Get 36 Gathering Placemats when you purchase the Gathering for the 2021-2022 School Year!
Plus:
The Gathering Placemats are SUPER simple to use. Just follow these three steps:
1. Buy the Gathering Placemats.
2. Print & laminate for durability.
3. Share the Gathering tradition with your family.
Are Gathering Placemats for you?
If you are a seasoned homeschool mom, looking to create NEW, meaningful traditions Gathering Placemats help you:
Each set of Gathering Placemats includes 4 placemats with:
The front of each placemat in the set is the same, featuring the hymn, a poem, & a Bible verse. Each back is different with various boxes of interest for kids (& adults).
Get 36 Gathering Placemats when you purchase the Gathering for the 2021-2022 School Year!
I am a homeschooling mama to four kids and writer over at Simple.Home.Blessings. For almost 10 years I have been sharing the simple solutions to problems I have in our home. I figure if a hard-won solution is a blessing for me, it might be a blessing for you.
The feast of education is MASSIVE! There is just so much I wanted to show my kids. When we stop to contemplate fundamental concepts like – goodness, truth, & beauty – coming to rest in our homes, it can seem almost overwhelming!
Before I started curating the Gathering Placemats, I was paralyzed by the abundance of options – none of which seemed the right fit. Not only could I not narrow it down, I didn’t even know where to start. I was unfocused and unable to figure it all out.
I knew there had to be a simple solution to my problem.
After trying & failing to implement the morning time I had dreamed of – where goodness, truth, and beauty were front and center – a spark of inspiration from a cereal box set off a new treasured family tradition for us.
While I was still trying to figure out what morning time looked like for us, I leaned in & started to pay attention to my kids. One day I realized the cereal box could hold their attention easily. Not exactly truth, goodness, & beauty…but at least I could see what they what held their attentions.
After examining the cereal box, I realized I could make something unique for our morning time – something bright & colorful, something with actual beauty. Instead of cartoon drawings & inane information, I could include beautiful art, life-giving truth, & all sorts of good things! I could finally capture my kids’ attention & CONNECT!
Gathering Placemats are my morning time solution!
Gathering Placemats provide a place where the feast of education is in small enough bites for my kids. My kids can take in the vast array of goodness, truth, & beauty a little bit at a time. And they can savor the delights of the feast throughout a month. What’s more, I can enjoy it with them! I, too am feasting at the table of education alongside my kids.
Our homeschool is what I would describe as firmly Classical with Charlotte Mason leanings.
What does that mean for the Gathering Placemats? Well, it means you will find all sorts of delightful things to grab your children’s attention and give them a heathy serving of goodness, truth, and beauty at the start of their days.
We are a Classical Conversations family. That means you will find memory work which looks familiar. I try to draw from various educational strands when I can. I like to add some history to our art study. Or some language learning to our math. I try to make each box on the placemats an opportunity for conversation.
We draw from the riches schedule from Ambleside Online for art, hymns, and other music. So, if you are following along with any of the AO years, you will find the Gathering Placemats work on the AO schedule. The riches are what make the AO curriculum sing and they are what make the Gathering Placemats POP! Those gorgeous full-color prints of famous works of art are swoon-worthy indeed.
We tend to be a rather silly and rather chatty family. We are constantly playing word games with one another and making up silly jokes. Thus, the Gathering Placemats have lots of word play, lots of riddles and jokes, lots of opportunities for kids to express their own cleverness.
Are Gathering Placemats for you?
If you are an intentional traditional school mom, looking to supplement & support your child’s learning, the Gathering Placemats help you:
...SHARE the educational feast with your kids a few bites at a time
...CONNECT with your kids through meaningful conversations
...SAVOR a morning time tradition alongside your kids
...finally SHOWCASE all the riches you want your kids to see
Are Gathering Placemats for you?
If you are a new homeschool mom, looking to create good consistency & habits, Gathering Placemats help you:
I introduced our Gathering placemats to my kids three years ago and I was blown away at how much they enjoyed them! They would choose favorites and fight learn to trade well with one another throughout the month. They would start to memorize poetry, Bible verses, and hymns without effort!
We did not take on all the information in the placemats on at one time. The luxury of a month of riches to savor became precious to us! We fell in love with this resource.
Every morning, my son requests that I sing the hymn for him. He is noticing the things on the placemats so much that we worked on his first natural sight words out of Psalm 100! It blesses this Mama’s heart immeasurably!
The instructions are on the front page of each downloadable set of placemats. The idea is for these to be used as place mats, front and back. Print pages 1 and 2, front and back; pages 1 and 3 front and back; pages 1 and 4, front and back; and finally pages 1 and 5, front and back. I laminated them to make sure they last through the month. The front page is the same for all my students and the backs are all different. This way the kids can trade them as the month proceeds.
I have an eclectic approach to our homeschool. We heavily lean on classical principles, but I like the Charlotte Mason approach to many things. I enjoy Ambleside Online’s resources and schedules and find they fit the rhythms of our year nicely. I do not always do three months of the artist AO recommends.
We are a Classical Conversations family, so some of the boxes are inspired by that. Meaning I will intend them to be extensions of the Foundations curriculum, not the specific memory work (other than skip counting). There are some boxes that will definitely help Foundations and Essentials family’s pound those memory pegs in.
Yes! I believe you are going to love the Gathering Placemats, but if for some reason you are disappointed with your purchase, I am able to offer refunds within 7 days of purchase. If you are unhappy with your purchase or have a problem with your purchase, please email me.
I take on a few items each Gathering time. Sometimes we talk about the art pieces. Sometimes we recite the poem or the Bible verse together. I put in some super simple boxes for my little ones because I have an age range from 10 to 4.
The kids are welcome to explore them on their own during our Gathering or throughout the day, but I don’t feel the need to get to everything every single day.
We pair these place mats with a Spotify playlist with the featured hymn (usually a vocal version and an instrumental version), a folk song, and some Classical music.
Each month I prepare a new set for my kids. New placemats, new playlist; refreshed excitement!
Yes! There are what I call evergreen sets, which may be used at any time of year.
You can check them out in our shop.
I started creating these simple Gathering placemats for our morning time. We call it Gathering simply because my invitation to begin our family’s special time is, “Gather ’round!”
Our Gathering was super simple in the beginning. It included Bible time, singing, and poetry. And honestly, that is all we had time for.
After I created the Gathering Placemats we were finally able to gather around all the goodness, truth and beauty I wanted to show my kids!
The Gathering Placemats are a digital product. You will receive a link to your purchase immediately upon successful checkout. You will also receive a receipt with links to download your product. The digital copies are yours to keep forever. I recommend downloading them to your computer to ensure you have them when you are ready for them.
You will not get a physical product through the mail.
Each set of Gathering Placemats includes 4 placemats with:
The front of each placemat in the set is the same, featuring the hymn, a poem, & a Bible verse. Each back is different with various boxes of interest for kids (& adults).
The Fall Gathering set includes:
Get 12 Gathering Placemats when you purchase the Fall Gathering!
Each set of Gathering Placemats includes 4 placemats with:
The front of each placemat in the set is the same, featuring the hymn, a poem, & a Bible verse. Each back is different with various boxes of interest for kids (& adults).
The 2021-2022 Gathering Placemat set includes:
Get 36 Gathering Placemats when you purchase the Gathering for the 2021-2022 School Year!
Plus:
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