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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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2018 – 2019 Curriculum Choices

2018-2019 Homeschool Curriculum

This year is going to be a way different than previous years because we made the decision to step away from the Abeka program. Abeka was our curriculum of choice since the beginning of our homeschooling journey. As a family, we realized we have different teaching and learning styles and we wanted to capitalize on that fact, to the fullest. Huge shout out to Rebecca Spooner from Homeschool On for providing the teaching style and learning quizzes to get us pointed in the right direction. She also took the time to answer many of my questions personally. Thank you lady! You are an inspiration! So this is our first school year where we get to build our curriculum from a variety of options and styles. We started testing this new method in January, while we were still doing Abeka. One aspect that I loved the most, was being able to do a few of our subjects family style. Bible, Science and History are perfect subjects for all my arrows to participate in, regardless of age. Huge plus for families of all sizes.

Enough rambling, here is our breakdown on curriculum for the 2018-2019 school year.

Bible: for our bible curriculum we are using Grapevine Studies. Their curriculum is structured for different learning styles and can be taught family style. Huge plus for what we were wanting to do.

Math: we are using Master Books. I really like the approach of their books. Its Charlotte Mason style so it’s fun for the kids to read follow along stories, while learning math.

Language Arts: we are doing Brave Writer. I have done a lot of research on this program and I absolutely love the whole approach to writing. The creator says that her whole goal for this program is for you to build a relationship with your child/children. She says it’s a lifestyle type of approach and I definitely love this change for my arrows.

Spelling: we are doing Spelling You See. I started doing this with my younger daughter and i have seen a huge growth with sounding out words. Since she’s a kinesthetic learner this is perfect for her. I am also incorporating this for my oldest daughter’s curriculum too.

Handwriting: The Good and the Beautiful. I absolutely love all of their subjects, but one of my favorites is handwriting. My girls love doing their work sheet every day and it has a fun activity for them to do on each page. It definitely has made tedious handwriting something that we look forward to doing each day now.

Science: The Good and the Beautiful. We did their human body unit study in January and we absolutely loved it. I let the girls decide what they wanted to learn about next and they chose the solar system unit study and the anthropoids unit study. These units are family style as well which we really enjoy.

History: The Good and the Beautiful. We are doing year 1 history. Reading the contents of this unit study really was exciting and definitely got my girls looking forward to History. It’s not just about learning, but the way you learn, and year 1 history is a bullseye, incorporating fun games to go along with learning. We will be doing this course family style as well.

Nature Study: Nature’s Anatomy book. The Nature Notebook from The Good and the Beautiful. It’s simple, we go into Nature, bring our journals and let your arrows express what they see, touch, smell, hear, and experience. Let them draw. Let them write. Let them collect. Let them get in touch with what God created, in their own way.

Art: Homeschool Art Studio. We just started this curriculum and don’t have much to say about it so far other than we are loving it! Especially my oldest arrow. There are many types of art lessons to choose from and its like having an artist in your house teaching yourself and your arrows how to achieve the finished piece. I will definitely be doing a review on this as time progresses.

Of course, last but not least is our Handy Dandy Morning Basket. We all love this time of our day. Please stay tuned for another post where I breakdown our Morning Basket Routine.

So that’s our Curriculum choices for the year. What are yours?

Thank you for joining our homeschool journey.