Homeschool Morning Basket – How It Changed our Homeschool
I love our morning basket. It’s become a beloved time by all of my children and it’s a time that I look forward to. I wish I had known about a homeschool morning basket from the beginning of our homeschool journey! Even if you’ve been homeschooling for years, you can begin utilizing a morning basket now. It will transform your homeschool, I can almost guarantee it! When my kids are telling me that morning time is their favorite part of our homeschool day, I know we are doing something right!
What Is a Homeschool Morning Basket?
I first learned about a morning basket when I stumbled upon Pam Barnhill’s eBook, Your Morning Basket, which is now Better Together. At the time, I didn’t full on implement a morning time schedule. I kind of just pulled books that I wanted to read, most from our My Father’s World curriculum, and threw them in a basket. We did preschool work, Bible, and history readings before we started on independent work.
After reading Barnhill’s book a little more closely, I decided to full on implement a morning time loop schedule and truly add truth, beauty, and goodness to our morning time through a variety of books and activities. What our morning time has become is more than I ever could have imagined. It is the essence of our homeschool. It is the reason why I wanted to homeschool. All of my kids can sit together with me and soak up so many wonderful ideas.
Here’s a look at what is included in our morning basket:
- Bible
- Memory Work
- Map Work
- Poem Memorization
- Read-Alouds
- Hymn Study
- Science Read Alouds
- Artist Study
- Poetry Reading
- Spanish
- Nature Study/Journal
- Composer Study
- Virtue Reading
- Shakespeare
- Art Work
Most of these subjects are not done everyday. That is where my loop schedule comes in. I love it! Basically, I choose a few subjects for daily work, and the rest is done on a loop. We usually do two extra subjects per day, depending on moods.
Our Morning Basket Schedule
Our daily work consists of Bible stories and/or devotions, memory work which is a nursery rhyme for my youngest learners, skip counting, 50 state memorization, etc, map work, poem memorization for my older kids, and read-alouds. We are usually always working on a chapter book and I usually read one or two picture books to my younger kids.
Here’s our loop schedule:
- Science read-aloud (living books that go with our science curriculum)
- Spanish (Song School Spanish, one chapter per week)
- Poetry reading/study
- Virtue reading
- Art study
- Natural history (Parables from Nature, James Herriot’s Treasury for Children, Nature Liberty Readers)
- Hymn Study
- Composer Study
- Art Time
- Shakespeare
- Nature Study/Journaling
I have an idea of what days each subject should be done, but the beauty of the loop schedule is that it doesn’t have to be done that day. We just do the next thing.
Our morning time can last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour depending on everyone’s moods. Our chapter book read-aloud honestly usually gets done in the evenings before bed.
Once we finish our morning time, the kids move into their independent studies.
Favorite Morning Basket Activities
Most of our morning basket activities just include reading great books and discussing them. Occasionally we add in some fun hands-on activities. One of our very favorite activities has been the Chalk Pastel Lessons from You Are an Artist. My kids have had so much fun creating different masterpieces based off of the lessons with Nana. I highly recommend them!
Our Monthly Morning Baskets
Would you like to take a peek into our morning baskets? Each month I am showing you what’s in our morning basket so you can get an idea about what we are studying! You’ll also want to be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see the videos that go along with them!
October Morning Time Binder and Morning Basket
November Morning Basket and Morning Time Binder
Christmas Morning Basket and Morning Time Binder
January 2019 Homeschool Morning Basket and Binder
February Homeschool Morning Basket
March 2019 Homeschool Morning Basket
August 2019 Homeschool Morning Basket
Charlotte Mason September Homeschool Morning Basket
Thanksgiving Homeschool Morning Basket
January Charlotte Mason Morning Time
20+ Homeschool Morning Time Themes and Ideas
Seaside Morning Time Menu and Homeschool Morning Basket
Resources for Planning A Homeschool Morning Basket
Here you’ll find some of my very favorite resources for putting together a homeschool morning basket of your own!
Better Together by Pam Barnhill – The queen of the homeschool morning basket.
You Are An Artist Chalk Pastel Courses – Our favorite art classes.
The Waldock Way – Lots of themed morning basket ideas!