Homeschool Morning Basket
We started our homeschool journey when my oldest was four, and morning time was always a part of our routine. I attempted to re-create what I knew from being a former classroom teacher, so we did a calendar time with materials on the wall, sang some songs, and did a read aloud. It worked well in the beginning, but over time I discovered homeschooling offers a world of freedom to do things in a variety of ways that bests suits each family. And—some things that work in a classroom setting simply don’t work the same at home.
A few years ago after reading up on morning basket from various other blogs and homeschoolers like Pam Barnhill, I decided to give it a try and we’ve stuck with it ever since. It’s essentially a version of morning time, but incorporates more than just the wall calendar routine we were doing. So really what’s changed is how we do our morning time.
While there isn’t just one right way, morning basket is a time when the whole family comes together and learns about the same thing. This is uniquely important for homeschoolers because we have a variety of ages of children that don’t do the same level work, but what is covered in this time can appeal to a range of ages. The materials used are usually kept in a basket, although we still do a brief calendar during this time and have a few things on the wall like our memory verse. My youngest also has a morning menu that covers some of the “calendar” things, but he does that later in the morning.
This coming together first thing is so important for our family. With two boys spaced more than six years apart, it’s good to have this connection time before we move onto individual subjects. If I don’t give my boys some together time in the morning, they will seek it out for themselves!
One of my other favorite parts of morning basket has been having sketched out time for some subjects we weren’t previously doing such as art appreciation, poetry, and music appreciation. By doing some things on our rotating basis, we are able to cover a variety of material without it being overwhelming.
Below I’ll do my best to explain in more detail what morning basket looks like for our family. I’ll share what’s in our basket and then our schedule of what it looks like in action. Keep in mind that we don’t do all these subjects every day, and explaining each of these subjects could be its own blog post, but I’ll try to keep them brief since this post is more about how we do morning basket. Also, these are the subjects we do during this time, but there are others that could be included too.
And be sure not to miss a printable morning basket planning sheet I’ve included below!
What’s Inside Our morning Basket?
- Bible study materials
- Current read aloud
- Poetry
- Music Appreciation materials
- Art Appreciation materials
- Other books we’re reading
Bible study Materials
After we do our short calendar time, we start off our morning basket by reading a short children’s devotion from our current devotional, God Is in Nature. There’s a children’s Bible in our basket for when we need to reference it. We also have a Bible Atlas that we’re reading through this year one day a week. I just added a set of prayer cards that we will be using as well. My oldest son’s language arts curriculum uses a book about Bible stories that we sometimes read in our morning time, so I also keep it in our basket. Finally, we have our current Bible study on contentment that we use once a week.
By the way, our prayer cards and Bible study are from Not Consumed which has been a great homeschool resource for our family.
Read Aloud
Read aloud has always been a part of our morning time, so this naturally fits here. This is a time when I read a chapter or two of our current chapter book, simply for the purpose of enjoying a book together.
My children aren’t expected to remain completely silent or sit completely still during this time. They will usually play quietly building something while I read to them. I do ask them to keep it quieter so they can hear me, but they are learning and comprehending as they keep their hands busy.
I also want to mention that I do a separate story time with my youngest later in the morning where we read picture books. We sometimes read picture books during morning basket, but he really enjoys listening along to our chapter books.
Poetry
We read poetry once a week at our poetry teatime. Sometimes we read from a poetry book, read through seasonal poems, or study a specific poet. We are currently reading some winter poems and a book called Poetry Teatime Companion. We will also be doing an upcoming study on Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote, A Child’s Garden of Verses.
Music Appreciation
We do music appreciation once a week and mainly use SQUILT. We’ve also done some hymn studies throughout the years. Currently, we are finishing up a SQUILT study on Bach. In past years we have done SQUILT’S Meet the Instruments and Meet the Composers, both of which are simple and wonderful studies the whole family can enjoy.
Art Appreciation
We’ve done art appreciation in are variety of ways over the years, but I usually bring it into our morning basket once a week in addition to more of the hands-on art we do in the afternoon. Sometimes we study seasonal art and do picture studies, or we study a specific artist.
Some artists we’ve studied are John James Audubon, Beatrix Potter, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Other Books
We also usually have one or two other books in our basket that we’re reading through. Sometimes they correlate with a unit or nature study, or something we want to learn more about.
Our other books right now are, The Building of the Ark Encounter since we visited there last summer, and The Story of the Pledge of Allegiance since we are studying flag etiquette right now.
We are also finishing up a geography study with Beautiful Feet Books that we started last year, so once a week I read a section from our book during this time.
Morning Basket Schedule
Now that you know what’s in our basket, you’re probably wondering how we use everything.
Like I mentioned earlier, we don’t do all subjects every day.
We start each morning doing a short calendar time (date, weather, etc.) with material that’s on the wall. We also review our Bible memory verse. Then we start our morning basket materials.
The things we do every day are our devotional, prayers (though we haven’t been consistent with this which is why I got the prayers cards to keep us on track), and our read aloud.
Everything else is on a rotating basis:
- Mondays: we do extra Bible time which is currently reading through our Bible Atlas
- Tuesdays: we do music and art appreciation
- Wednesdays: we do poetry and our Not Consumed Bible study
- Thursdays: we do our reading for geography
- Fridays: we review Bible verses from our verse box
I created a simple morning basket schedule sheet that I keep posted in our school room to keep track of what we’re doing for the week. It’s printed on cardstock and laminated so I can easily write on it with vis-a-vis marker, and then wipe it down and start over the next week.
You can print off a copy for yourself at the end of this post! I’ve included the version I use AND a blank version without subjects so you can write in what matches your schedule.
DOWNLOAD PLANNING SHEET BELOW
Final Thoughts
Our morning basket usually last around 45 minutes depending on the day, and afterwards we get into more of our core subjects like math, spelling, history, etc. It’s been the perfect way to give my boys some together time before heading into individual subjects–which is a separate blog post on how I make it work with two kids at different levels.
My boys are 11 (6th grade) and 5 (Pre-K), and this is what works for our family right now. Starting our day with some together time helps the rest of the day run smoother, though that’s not to say we don’t have our bumps. This really is one of our favorite parts of the day!
Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions!
