If you are in any way part of the homeschooling world you have probably heard about Morning Basket time!
This is a special time in the morning dedicated to what you would like to do with your children and can include whatever you would like. You don't even have to homeschool to do it! The basic idea is that you gather around with your children usually in the living room on couches and pull out your basket of goodies and go through it together.
Some moms do art, poetry, read-alouds or other things they'd like to touch on. There really is no right or wrong way to do it! You can use a wooden basket like pictured above or maybe even this one or try these fabric storage cubes that work really great as well:
I have similar ones all over the house to hold things like library books, preschool books, and more.
I, personally, like to do the following and have been doing it this way for years:
BIBLE READING - we all gather together with our Bibles (we try to use the same translation so that we can follow along easily) and we take turns reading from a selected chapter.
BIBLE STUDY - I will print out a Bible study on a topic like "kindness" from here and have the children highlight these verses in their Bible with highlighters.
BIBLE VERSE - I bring to attention the Bible verse we are focusing upon for the week for school and we say it together and talk about how to apply it. They memorize it on their own time and come say it to me during the week. This past week we learned and focused on this verse "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. ~Psalm 90:12
CHARACTER - Like stated above in the BIBLE STUDY section, I will choose a topic (especially one I think they might need work on and spend some time in it. We even like to go as far as acting out skits or scenes that are relevant to real life. This usually ends up in laughter and everyone enjoying this part (maybe getting a little TOO silly! ) and how to apply it every day situations. Since we are studying kindness right now I printed out a calendar printable of ideas, watched a video on on random acts of kindness, and we are being challenged to do several during the week.
MISSIONARY - We will watch a quick video (about 5-10 mins long) on our Galaxy View (since it is simple to carry and move around) on a Christian missionary or hero of the faith and learn about what they did so they learn. We recently watched this video on George Mueller. You can find a great list of missionary resources from my list here.
HYMNS - we print out lyrics and will sing hymns and learn them together. I recently found this new site that I want to start using that has pretty hymn printables (and includes music sheets and writing practice).
PRAYER - we pray together for needs of our family, friends, neighborhood, and that the Gospel would go out and reach many for salvation. We also pray for specific things by pulling out cards and praying for what we have written on a card (we have done this in the past and I am bringing it this back this year).
PICTURES: You can also add pictures of whatever you are talking about that day to help what you are teaching on come alive and pass it around.
I don't always do hymns or the missionary videos but I like to loop them and use them as I can.
Some of you might even like reading out loud some fun Christian fiction to them.
After much prayer and research I feel like this is the best use of my "morning basket" time and if something came up and changed our homeschool day that at least this got in what I felt would be the most important part of our day.
What do *you* use for your morning basket time?
We'd love to hear about it!
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3 comments:
I love this post on how you use your "morning basket time". Right now since it is still warm out, our morning basket time is more group time where we are doing memory work, taking walks outside for a few minutes, and study some parts of art or science. But, in the winter when we can't get out I do a read aloud in the morning with a missionary book. The tales usually hold my children captivated!
Dear Michelle,
Sounds like fun--especially taking the walks! Thanks for sharing your morning time with us and hope you visit again soon!
We have done a variety of morning times throughout our 23 years of homeschooling. Every morning we do Bible reading and prayer. For many years we did Bible memory then, too, but during a recent move we lost our Scripture memory box based on Simply Charlotte Mason's set-up and method. I know I'll find it when I get everything unpacked, but that part of our morning hasn't been re-incorporated yet. We've read hymn histories and learned the hymns; we've read biographies, "lady-training" books, and we are now reading Jay Adam's book "A Thirst for Wholeness" (which I recommend for EVERY Christian); and we have enjoyed an anthology of poetry for quite a few years. It's a great way to start the day.
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