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Morning Baskets are such a beautiful addition to our homeschool days. Even if our Morning Basket looks different each year, it’s always been an anchor to our homeschool. Some years our Morning Basket is fuller and heavier, and other years it’s very light. It changes to fit our needs for that year, and that’s one of the beautiful things about it.
If you ask my children what their favorite part of Morning Basket it, they’ll probably all answer with the book they’re allowed to read aloud to us each morning. This year, Silas read missionary stories while Titus read history stories each day. It’s become important to them to have a part in our Morning Basket, so I’m making sure to include them in it this year, too.
(I don’t have Thursdays listed below because those are our Co-op days. We will be leaving the house early and I know I will be too tired to do it when we get home.)
Here are our loose plans for this year:
Bible (10 minutes)
We always start with the Bible. As Christians, the Bible is the most important book to our family. If my kids know nothing else but the Bible, I know they’ll have all the truth they need.
What does our Bible Time look like? I simply read from the Bible to them! I use the New Living Translation because not only is it very understandable in modern English, it’s a very close translation to the original transcripts. No translation is perfect, but this one is my absolute favorite.
We will be reading straight through from Genesis this year. Our history focus this year is ancient history, and history begins with the Creation of the world. I will read a chapter or two each day and we will discuss it together. We should get through several books of the Old Testament.
Memorization (5-7 minutes)
We memorize scripture and poetry every year; some years are heavier on scripture and some on poetry. This year we will be memorizing “chunks” of scripture. You’ll notice I chose a passage from each of the four gospels.
Matthew 6:5-15
Mark 14:22-26
Luke 4:1-13
John 1:1-18
If we memorize those four passages, then I will choose some more. The plan is to memorize two passages before Christmas break, and two passages before summer break.
Read Aloud (10 minutes)
I plan to read a chapter from a book each morning to them. I want these books to be books that are classics we have missed and other books that the kids will want to hear more of each day. I chose three books and when we finish these, I’ll choose a few more.
Loop Reading (5-7 minutes)
Last year the boys mainly read books aloud that had short stories or short chapters, and I’m trying to keep that in mind as I chose the books for them to begin reading. Last year, they each read every day, but I think we’re going to loop it this year. This is my plan for the week:
Enrichment Loop (5 minutes)
I’d like to add a few things to our basket that won’t take but a few minutes each day. I’m going to loop them with Friday being a review day for them all.
FRIDAY: Review Day! We will review the art cards, tree flashcards, and manner cards for a few minutes.
Kindergarten Loop (5 minutes)
I want to add some things for Zeke to have as his own each morning, so I’m going to loop a few subjects for him as well. The bigger kids can sit in with him so he will know that his stuff is just as important! (And I’ll probably do his loop first.)
That’s It!
I’m aiming for our Morning Basket to take around 30-45 minutes each morning. Then we will all be off to complete our schoolwork. We will be doing history together, and I will probably just start our day after Morning Basket with history. I’ll read the selections, then they’ll work in their Narration Notebooks (narrations, mapping, drawing).
What’s in your Morning Basket?
