our homeschool morning basket.

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I mentioned the other day that we've been implementing Morning Basket into our daily school routine, and I have been loving it.  We all gather together to do much of our reading and daily riches as a family, which is one of the things I just adore about homeschooling - every moment can be leveraged to further cement these eternal relationships.

After morning chores, I call the kids in to gather in Juniper's room.  They bring drawing notebooks and pencils, and I snuggle into the rocking chair.  I put Juniper in her bed for safe playing, and Callista is typically good about sitting on my lap or coloring, though if she's being really disruptive or throwing fits, she gets put in her bed to play while we finish up.

Penelope, making herself comfy on the floor.

Why, what gave you the impression that Callista doesn't like to be relegated to her bed to play?

I keep our items in a milk crate, because I was using an actual basket that quickly became too small.  We're able to cover a lot in our morning time!

Prayer and Bible

We start our day with prayer - I ask the kids what I can be praying for them, and then we all bow our heads and pray together for those things.  It's a great touchpoint for knowing what is on everyone's hearts as we jump into the day.  Then we read one chapter of the Bible - this year, I'm hoping to cover Genesis, Exodus and Mark, just moving through each book a chapter at a time.  We're using the King James Version, and it is surprisingly easy for the kids to track with (as long as I'm reading it with confidence in my voice.  Don't let them smell the fear).

Life Skills

We move on to life skills.  We have been loving "The Goops and How to Be Them" - short little illustrated poems about manners and virtue, similar in rhythm to Shel Silverstein, first published in 1900.  As soon as I pull this book out, at least one kid yells, "YAY! THE GOOPS!"  And we've developed language in our house in reference to what we've learned: "Oh, don't be Goopy."  This is a book we get to the end of and begin again immediately.  I'm going to be ordering "More Goops and How Not to Be Them" very soon.

Reading The Goops on her own once we've finished with it for the day.

We also are reading through books on the topics of Christian boyhood and girlhood.  I have been so impressed by Boyhood and Beyond by Bob Schultz - this is one we will be going back to again and again, I'm sure.  We're also reading Beautiful Girlhood, revised by Karen Andreola.  This was highly recommended to me, and the character training is really excellent!  However, I don't love the writing style - it's a bit Victorian for my taste, but the content is so good that I'm not sure whether I'll look for an alternative next year or not.  We'll see.  We rotate these - we only read one chapter each day from one or the other of them.

We are also going through 50 Things Every Young Gentleman Should Know, as well as 50 Things Every Young Lady Should Know.  These cover basic manners and etiquette rules.  They are very practical, pretty short, and address things I never would have thought or known to teach.  (Did you know that you always introduce a younger person to an older person, not the other way around?)  They're basic books; the writing isn't stellar, but they're helpful.

Year 1 Free Reads

We are slowly working our way through the free reads list for AmblesideOnline's Y1.  Right now we're reading Pinocchio, which is funny and infuriating and insightful.  This copy, illustrated by Roberto Innocenti and broken into very manageably-sized chapters, is so beautiful, I purchased it from the library instead of bearing the agony of returning it.

Hymn, Memory, and Poetry

We learn a new hymn each month.  I had been following the AO hymn schedule, but was finding that I would quickly abandon this area of school if it required me to pull up a track or video on YouTube.  So I got a copy of Then Sings My Soul, a book with sheet music and a brief background of hundreds of hymns, and we just sing together a capella.  It has really helped me become much more consistent with this, and it is so sweet to hear even the littlest kids learning the words and singing along!

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The hymn we focused on in September was All Creatures of our God and King. “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluuuuuuuia!”

A post shared by Paige Van Voorst (@theminivanvoorsts) on Nov 7, 2019 at 4:43pm PST

For memory, we typically memorize short poems, pertinent information (phone numbers, addresses), math facts, Bible verses, quotes by Christian leaders, lines from literature, etc.  This term, we've focused solely on memorizing one longer poem - "If," by Rudyard Kipling.  I'm not super methodical about where I find our material, I just write things down on index cards as I come across things I think would be good to memorize.  This year, we've been using The Harp and Laurel Wreath for dictation, and there are some great selections in there (we also use this book for dictation in Year 4); I've also found some wonderful material in The Book of Virtues.  At some point, I will post about what we've memorized, and what else is on our list to continue to work on!

For poetry, we follow the AO poetry schedules for Year 1 and Year 4, but I will admit that the Y4 poet this term is Tennyson, and I can't stand him.  Maybe I'm just not pretentious enough to track along with his soliloquys on millions of Greek myths I've never read.  So we've just been reading A Child's Book of Poems from the Y1 schedule and loving it.  Beautiful illustrations, really sweet poems, (mostly) Not Tennyson.  All around, it's a win.

Composer/Artist Biography

This term's composer is Mozart, and we loved the little living biography by Opal Wheeler.  She has a whole series of biographies of great composers, so I'm looking forward to continuing to read her books.  Our artist this term is Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and I know you won't believe it when I say this, but there are no children's books on him, living or otherwise.  Shocker.

Geography/Nature Books

For science, I check out random books on the term's Nature Study topic (this term: agricultural crops) and Geography concept (this term: mountains and valleys).  We've discovered quite a number of stinker picture books this way, but there have been a few gems.  We loved Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie - we have read through it multiple times, will likely read it a few more before we have to take it back to the library, and it is definitely a book worth owning.  The Street Beneath My Feet is a fun one that folds waaaaaaaaaay out to show the different layers of the earth.

It keeps folding out for seven or eight more pages, illustrated all the way from street level to the earth's core!  

Just-For-Fun Literature Picks

We may or may not get a few pages of a for-fun book in at this time, depending on how much time we have left in our hour.  Brambly Hedge is one we're really loving right now!  The illustrations of the pantries and storehouses make me want to go live inside a British Store Stump right now.

Shakespeare

I usually dismiss the little kids at this time, and the big kids and I listen to a little bit of Shakespeare.  This term, we're going through As You Like It.  I have really loved the Simply Charlotte Mason Shakespeare resources - basically, you read a child's version of the story (usually Lamb or Nesbitt, included in the resource packet), then you listen to the ArkAngel recording of it while reading along with the actual script, then you watch it.  (Making sure that it's a family-friendly production - there are some racy Shakespeare productions!) The kids have really picked up on it, and it is genuinely one of the most enjoyable parts of the day for all of us, especially Penelope (and Rocco, when he joined us to watch the movie with Helen Mirren - he loved it!).  Who'd have thought?!  I think next, we may work on acting out a scene or two ourselves!

This book has also been super helpful, and I've been reading small sections from it to the kids each day.  It has suggestions for memory work, as well as insights and interesting notes about each play.

It is a lot to cover in a short amount of time, but I think that's why I like Morning Basket time so much.  We cover so many wonderful things in a short amount of time, and we're able to do it together instead of segregated by age.  It's such a great way to start the day!