A few weeks ago, I shared our beautiful and peaceful morning time routine. This lovely transition to our homeschool was inspired by the Morning Time Basket program.
I realized as I shared about our morning time routine, how our basket will have a life of its own. I imagine the contents of the basket will regularly change. We will take away books and items and will add new contents probably every few weeks.
Today I would like to share what’s in our Morning Time Basket for the month of April.
Morning Time Basket inspiration! Check out all of the inspiring books and #homeschool supplies! Click To TweetThe Contents of Our Morning Time Basket (April)
Bible
This month we are using The Jesus Storybook Bible and the Jesus Calling Children’s Devotional for our Bible studies.
Social Studies
We’re studying The Story of the World (Volume II). We also have the audio CDs to this book. It’s awesome to listen to.
We have a Compassion Canada foster child. Every few months, Compassion Canada sends us the Compassion Explorer children’s magazine. This month, we’re reading through the latest edition. Past editions of the magazine can be downloaded for FREE from the website as well.
We’re also going to be looking through our most recent edition of Kayak magazine. Kayak is a fabulous Canadian history magazine for kids. My girls love it!
Every month, we read the biography of a famous person in history. This month we’ll be reading the biography of Amelia Earhart.
Also handy in our Morning Time Basket is the fabulous World Scrunch Map! I love using this map when we need to look up a city or a country during Morning Time. We simply unfold the map to use and then squish it back into its bag when we’re done! Amazing!
The girls have been loving the read aloud books we do during Morning Time. This month’s classic is The Story of Doctor Doolittle. We’re also enjoying the occasional reading from Aesop’s Fables.
We have a Kindle in our Morning Time Basket as well. What I love about the Kindle, is we have large collections of classic books and poetry stored on the device.
Science
Our science during Morning Time often includes books as well. We will read a section from Everything on Earth (Everything You Need to Know) or do an experiment from Usborne’s First Encyclopedia of Science.
Music
We use Morning Time to sing hymns and praise and worship songs but we also study classical pieces of music. I love to use SQUILT (Super Quiet Uninterrupted Listening Time) for this purpose. There are links to musical pieces to listen to, as well as notebooking pages for us to collect for our learning portfolios. We are still working on composers and music from the Baroque Era.
Art
One of the last activities we do from our Morning Time Basket is art. I have artist journals for the girls, as well as watercolours, and a package of oil pastels. Sometimes they do art based upon inspiration that came from Morning Time and sometimes I use an art book as a provocation.
So that’s the contents from April’s Morning Time Basket. I love seeing how this basket of learning expands and evolves.
Reflect:
What books and materials are you reading and exploring with your children lately? Please take a few moments to comment below! I would love to hear from you!
Ooh, I love this morning basket idea. I just need to find a good place to put one…and then not clutter it up with other stuff :P. Thanks for the inspiration!
The Morning Time basket and routine have revolutionized our homeschool days! Yesterday we took the basket and sat in the yard for Morning Time. I envision walking to the grassy hills by our house during the summer months and doing Morning Time there. I love it!
I’m not a homeschooler, but I’m really interested in this morning basket concept! I wonder if I could do a version for my toddler! :) You’ve got my wheels turning ….
You could definitely do a toddler version! A couple songs, a great book, a couple nature items to explore, some watercolours… YES! It would be lovely!
I love this! My question for you is …. How do I do this with my 14 Month old son? My two other sons are 5 and 10 next month.
I’m delighted you enjoyed this Tameka!
That’s a wonderful question and one that’s commonly asked. The Morning Time Basket approach doesn’t have to be done just in the morning. If your youngest has a naptime, that may be an ideal time to do your basket with your other sons. However, if you can manage it before your other schooling, it is best because as Pam says in her book it does set “the learning disposition for the day”.
Another idea would be to plan something especially for your 14 month old (i.e. place him on the floor with a new toy or object to explore). On my other blog, The Deliberate Mom, I have a couple posts which may give some ideas for how to occupy him while you do morning time with your children:
An Infant’s Treasure Basket: Heuristic Play – http://thedeliberatemom.com/an-infants-treasure-basket/
Fabulous Brain-Building Activities for Your Infant – http://thedeliberatemom.com/babies-play-brain-building-activities-for-your-infant/
I hope this helps you a bit. Feel free to pop by if you have any other questions!
Totally just bought this map!
Oh you are going to LOVE it Dana! It’s one of my favourite homeschooling “tools”!