Our {Winter} Morning Basket

Many homeschoolers use "morning baskets," or "afternoon baskets" during the day. They typically consist of a hodgepodge of reading selections, some often religious or spiritual. As secular homeschoolers, we do not use any religious texts in our school, but we love morning baskets!

I feel like if we can only get through an hour of morning basket work and nothing else, then I can happily live with that!

Come take a peek at what's in our winter morning basket. Ours is individualized for my fourth grader who is learning about our home state of California this year. Please feel free to glean some ideas from our basket or comment some of your own suggestions and/or experiences.

Topics we cover:

1. Morning binder
2. Memory work
3. Art/Picture Study
4. History
5. Nature/Science
6. Seasonal Extra 
7. Poetry
8. Shakespeare
9. Biography
10. Read-Aloud

Now, we don't read from every topic every day, but we do most of them.

1. Morning binder

The morning binder consists of a personal information and emotions page, in which he practices writing and signing his name, writing his address and phone number, and documenting his feelings that day. I printed an emotion circle chart with a host of emotions available to choose from.

 Next is a page with a letter of the day. He must brainstorm a noun, verb, adjective, animal, food, and place that all begin with that letter. It's been wonderful practice for him to remember parts of speech. He also writes down the book and author he's currently reading and jots down any spelling words he's working on.

 Then we have a page for Latin words and food. He typically picks a Latin word he's currently learning, writes its meaning, puts it in a sentence, and draws it. I write the name of a food, and he looks it up in our Wellness Foods from A to Z book and records its vitamin/mineral content.

 Because we're studying California all year, I write a different California city every day on this map page, and he searches online for it, marks its location and ours and records which direction that city is from us.

 2. Memory Work

This season, Aidyn is working on memorizing "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. We only work on this for five minutes a day with the goal of being able to recite it around Christmas.

3. Art/Picture Study

This season, we are looking at California impressionists. Most of the art is of beautiful California landscapes.

Once a week, we observe one painting, trying to copy it into our mind, close the book, and try to relate it back with words. Then we open it up and see if we missed any details. It's fun to hear what he sees compared to what I see, as he's usually more perceptive.

4. History

Again, because we are focused on California this year, we are mostly reading California history books.

Every day, we read a snippet about Native Californians.

Every other day, we read one of the stories in It Happened in Northern California, which is filled with all sorts of interesting stories from our region of the state.

 

Because early California history has us learning about Native Californians, we are also learning about extraordinary American Indians as well. We read one account per week.

 

5. Nature/Science

Aidyn loves rocks, so we're reading about different kinds of rocks and minerals every other day (or more, as Aidyn demands!)

6. Seasonal Extra

I found a fun Christmas book that explores the etymology behind seasonal words. We focus on one word a day.

 

What I love about this book is that each word references an old language (often Latin), a famous poet, and Shakespeare! 

7. Poetry

Once a week (usually on Poetry Teatime Tuesdays), we read a selection of poetry. This season is Winter Bees & Other Poems of the Cold and Antarctic Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems.

8. Shakespeare

This season we are reading an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, a fanciful story of a magician and his daughter on a strange and haunted island.
 

 The illustrations are absolutely beautiful. We read a small section every day and plan to stretch it out all season.

9. Biography

We are focusing on a famous Californian, Joe DiMaggio.

10. Read-Aloud

So I'm not the only one reading, Aidyn reads a chapter every day from our current read-aloud, Stone Fox.

And that's it! Can you see why if all we do is our morning basket, I would be pretty satisfied? It usually only takes us an hour to get through it, and Jack is nearing an age where he is more receptive to materials we read and takes an interesting in listening along. Eventually my hope is that the morning basket unites us in home learning even if we are at different stages.

Please don't think this is all we do. After morning basket, we typically have a full day of math, Spelling Power, copywork/dictation, grammar, Latin, science (on some days), and outside classes (science olympiad, P.E., writing workshop, and study hall).

Does your family have a morning basket? What kinds of things do you read? Do you do anything special for the holidays? I'd love to hear about it!

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Play School with Jack~ Letter Ff

Play School for One-Year-Old (13M) Jack

Week Six

Letter Ff

Letter-of-the-week box~ Letter Ff

This week's letter box is filled with a frog puppet, a plush frog toy, a jumping frog toy and plastic frog toy, footballs, a fish, two books about farms, a fire truck book with wheels, a picture of a fox, foam letter F, and a foam number 5.

Jack enjoyed exploring his letter-of-the-week box, especially the footballs and the frog puppet. I made the puppet croak and talk to him, much to his delight.

Music~

This week, we listened to French children's songs and forest sounds on YouTube. His favorite, by far, was the video below, which simply consists of a frog singing French songs in a Chipmunk-pitched voice.

On Thursday, we played this relaxing forest sounds video and listened to the gentle sounds of forest animals, rivers, and brooks. It really mellowed the atmosphere in our home.

Other language activities~

We read Forest Babies (Animal Babies) together a few times this week. Jack enjoyed "petting" and giving kisses to all the animal babies. We talked about each animal and the sounds they make, and when he was open to it, I read him the actual text.

• lots of talking, listening, and signing (still working on "more" and "banana")
• ABC song and counting
• talking about pain (he was dealing with some terrible teething pain, so we talked a lot about pain, where it was coming from, and medicine to help relieve it)

Physical/Sensory activities~

Jack is still mastering the skill of walking. He certainly walks more than ever but still relies on crawling to get him places fast. He's also still climbing up and down stairs and has become quite adept at it. Rocking in his little red rocking chair is one of his favorite activities.

 

Exploring the world~

We went hiking along the Tuolumne River in Modesto, and though I mostly carried Jack in the wrap, he enjoyed looking up at the trees and pointing whenever a bird flew overhead. He held branches, acorns, oak leaves, and other nature treasures.

His favorite part was crawling and walking in the dirt and leaves. He mucked through it all, picking up tiny sticks and throwing acorns, until his pants and socks were full of crunched-up leaves. When we got home, he took the longest nap he's ever taken.

Now that the weather is cooling down, it's hard to get outdoors as often, but the payoff is worth it!

Take-Aways~

• We need more outdoor/nature time, even if the weather is terrible
• I really enjoyed playing nature sounds instead of only traditional music
• I would like to incorporate Jack into more of homeschooling activities, especially poetry teatime and P.E. class (as just an observer, of course.)

There will not be a play school post next Sunday because we are taking the week off to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday. But we'll be back with letter Gg!

Our Three Most Treasured Thanksgiving Stories

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday--the colors, the food, the gathering, the warmth of home, and the pumpkin-infused everything. Over the years, we have read (and re-read) some wonderfully beautiful Thanksgiving stories, and I want to share them with you!

We'll start with the best:


 Cranberry Thanksgiving  by Harry and Wende Devlin is so delicious and heart-warming, it has become a family tradition. Set on a cranberry farm in New England, the story centers around a treasured and secret cranberry bread recipe in danger of being snagged. A sweet and delightful tale, Cranberry Thanksgiving shows us how important it is to reserve judgements and how easy it is to love Mr. Whiskers!

An Outlaw Thanksgiving by Emily Arnold McCully is a captivating story based on the true events. Young Clara and her mother find themselves at a Thanksgiving banquet with a man whose face seems oddly familiar to one they saw on a wanted poster, the notorious Butch Cassidy. Clara learns about human complexity and the unexpected in the Wild West in this adventurous Thanksgiving tale.

Thanksgiving on Thursday (Magic Tree House #27) Like all Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osbourne, readers are plunked right in the middle of the action. Jack and Annie find themselves at the very first Thanksgiving where they meet Squanto and the Pilgrims. What we loved about this book was how we felt simply transported back in time with a rare firsthand look at the origins of Thanksgiving.

 Do you have any Thanksgiving favorites I failed to mention? I want to hear about them!

Super-Mini Sword in the Stone Unit Study

It is no secret that our family loves Disney and that we try to work it into our homeschool whenever possible, but I noticed that it had been some time since we had last done a Disney-inspired homeschool unit.

We took a quick break from our regular studies to briefly visit King Arthur and the medieval period.

Literature:

We read some of The Tales of King Arthur by James Riordan and compared it to the Disney film.

Social Studies:
We also read the ridiculous and informative You Wouldn't Want to Be a Medieval Knight by Fiona McDonald. The book places you right in the metal pants of medieval knights for a firsthand look at what life was really like in "the dark ages."

Of course, we watched Disney's Sword in the Stone!

 Language Arts/Vocabulary/Latin roots:

We explored the meaning of "mediocrity," a quality Merlin warned young Arthur to avoid. Exploring its Latin roots led to a fun discovery of what the word meant visually. We talked about how "mediocrity" literally means "middle of a jagged mountain." We had been reading many Hero's Journey types of stories lately, so this definition made sense from that angle.

More social studies/Coat of arms:
 

After reading about knights and seeing a picture of a coat of arms, Aidyn wanted to see our family's coat of arms. I printed out a shield (see end of blog for links), and he colored according to our family's unique coat of arms. It was even fun to look up the Latin meaning of our family name.

Copywork:

Aidyn copied an inspirational quote from the movie (and even repeated one of the lines!). We talked about freedom of choice and perceived destiny. Nine-year-old children begin really understanding their individuality, and stories in which characters pursue their own goals can help them vocalize this new stage of life (we have also read Norse myths lately, for this reason).

We enjoyed a very short unit study with Sword in the Stone, but if you would like to take it further, check out these links to get started:

Sword in the Stone Pinterest Page
King Arthur Unit Study from Layers of Learning
Medieval Unit Study

Play School with Jack~ Letter Ee

Play School for 1-Year-Old (13M) Jack

Week Five

Letter Ee

(Pictures/comments for this week are sparse because Jack is busy mastering how to walk and he is cutting a tooth, so I have been busy observing and healing his jaw pain)

Letter-of-the-Week box~ Letter Ee

Letter Ee box is filled with egg cartons, letter Es, an elephant finger puppet, an egg and chick stencil, a large elephant card, envelopes, cards with an eagle and elephant, and the book Green Eggs and Ham.

Again, this week, Jack showed disinterest in his letter box. I'm assuming it's because he's busy with walking! Still, I left it out for him to explore but never forced him to play with it. 

Music~

We lovingly flooded our home with the King of Rock 'n' Roll: Elvis Presley. I played YouTube playlists of Elvis music and sang and danced along with them. Jack seemed to enjoy the new music.

Other language activities~

• lots of talking, listening, and conversing
• continued sign language exposure (mostly "more" and "banana")
• singing the ABCS
• counting (steps, buttons, fingers, and toes)

Physical and sensory activities~

As I mentioned, Jack is focused on walking right now. He constantly practices pulling himself up (on furniture and without assistance) and takes many steps. Pulling himself on a riding toy is his latest victory. He's also been working on his pincer grasp.

Take-Aways:

When Jack is more consumed with a emerging gross motor skill, I have learned he is less interested in other activities, which is okay. My only goal for this stage is exposure (not mastery). 99% of what I'm doing is strewing and allowing him to explore on his own timetable. Meanwhile I am learning him, what he likes and doesn't care for right now and his personality.