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My Morning Basket

When I first read about the concept of a Morning Basket, I really loved the idea. It was originally created by the amazing Homeschool momma Pam Barnhill. The awesome thing about this concept is that you can customize it any way you like. When I first started our Morning Basket, I would add books based on our current theme or holiday, but I have learned that the Morning Basket has so much more potential. I have incorporated different subjects into my morning basket this school year along with some theme and/or holiday content. I really like to have it free flowing with the intent of refreshing and waking up my arrows minds in the morning while having a lot of fun. Even though our basket is free flowing, our Bible and Devotional are a constant. So let’s get into my Morning Basket:

Bible: I use a curriculum called Grapevine Studies. My Arrows get to draw while I read the word. They also have scriptures they memorize and we end it with some wonderful conversations.  We love to start our day with the Lord and meditate on Him.

Devotional: We are loving the Indescribable: 100 Devotions for Kids About God and Science. We love the aspect of science and God’s word explained to little ones. Easy and fun to understand. Mind blowing facts that we still talk about.

Read Aloud: This will change every month but we are currently reading Little House in the Big Woods (Little House, No 1) and we are really enjoying it. When we finish the book we will be making a lap book to cap off what we have learned. We love lapbooks and you will see that we do many of them throughout the year.

Hands On Books: We are currently using Wipe-Clean Ready for School ABC & 123 (Usborne Wipe-Clean Books) & Wipe-Clean Telling the Time [With Wipe-Clean Pen] (Usborne Wipe-Clean) books. We like to use them while I read aloud and I use them to keep my arrows entertained while I step away to take care of my toddler.

Poems: As a family that does the Brave Writer lifestyle, We do Poetry Tea Time often, but we also love reading a poem or two during our morning time.

Language Arts:  We incorporated Super Silly Mad Libs Junior for our Language Arts portion of our Morning basket. The kiddos think they are really funny and we love making them together. Sometimes, even Daddy joins in on the fun.

Logic: We are currently using Brain Quest Brain Quest Kindergarten, revised 4th edition: 300 Questions and Answers to Get a Smart Start (Brain Quest Decks) & Brain Quest Grade 4, revised 4th edition: 1,500 Questions and Answers to Challenge the Mind (Brain Quest Decks) for each of my girls. This gets their Brains warmed up and ready to listen and start the day.

Art: We are currently using theSpot the Differences Book 1: Art Masterpiece Mysteries (Dover Children’s Activity Books). Besides our Bible this is their 2nd favorite thing to do in our basket. They love learning about new artists and looking through famous paintings. We enjoy doing this together. We also use the famous artist cards from Usborne, these are a huge hit as well.

Foreign Language: The kiddos wanted to start learning languages. I asked them which one they wanted to learn first. My arrows said Spanish then French. I am incorporating a First Thousand Words in Spanish by Usborne along with a workbook.  We are having too much fun trying to have conversations in Spanish.

I also have a couple of resources and games in my morning basket to break up each subject and to keep us motivated. Our family loves to play games so I incorporate several into our Morning Basket. Here are some of our game selections: Mindful Kids: 50 Activities for Calm, Focus and Peace , Bananagrams Appletters: Spelling and Word Tile Game By,Dutch Blitz Dutch Blitz,ThinkFun Math Dice Junior Game for Boys and Girls Age 6 and Up – Teachers Favorite and Toy of the Year Nominee, Yoga Cards The Game, North Star Games Happy Salmon | Fast Paced Family Card Game

Well, there it is…that’s my customized Morning Basket. I absolutely love my Morning Basket and great sign to show its effectiveness is when my arrows tell me that they are looking forward to our Morning Basket time. My goal for my basket is to motivate my arrows and start each Homeschool day on a happy note. Journey on.

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Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

My family and I love this time of year.  I think it’s mostly me but my arrows definitely enjoy it too. We took our church co-op on  a field trip to the pumpkin patch today. I believe it’s the perfect introduction for our pumpkin science week which I’ll be posting about later, it’s pretty much, all things pumpkins! Yay!

I get soo excited thinking of all the activities I have planned. I have a feeling it will turn into a Unit Study. We love Unit Studies and I try to make them really fun for our whole family.

So on to our trip today, we went to Wagner Farms. They are a local farm here in Albuquerque that put on a pumpkin patch every year. They have a really fun corn maze. We didn’t get to finish it last year but we were determined to complete it this year, and we did. It was very rewarding for the kiddos. The finish line is the entrance for the pumpkin patch, the kids ran happily towards the pumpkins. They were soo excited to pick out their very own. My two oldest went on an adventure picking while i was trying to keep up with my nature / dirt loving toddler.

As soon as we finished picking our pumpkins, a wagon was waiting to take us on a hayride. It was really fun seeing the displays they had out and it went with their theme which is Pirates, Argh!!

Next, the wagon dropped us off at the petting zoo. They had a very nice variety of animals. My little Kai loved the pigs and my Ra’ah loved the Shetland ponies. After having fun with the animals, the kiddos were ready for lunch. After lunch we let the kiddos play for a bit afterwards while us moms had great fellowship. I truly appreciate the ladies that i get to share this amazing journey with.  Below are some of the highlights of our trip. We can’t wait to do many more.