Looking to start a morning basket for your preschooler? Need some more ideas on what to include in your early years basket?
Morning time is the perfect solution for creating a space for things that would otherwise get pushed aside. It also helps build your family bond and creates lifelong learners. And, having a morning basket with all your supplies will make morning time go much more smoothly.
But what all should you include in your homeschool morning basket? Especially, if you have young children.
In this post, we’ll share our Charlotte Mason morning basket for the early years to give you loads of ideas on what to include in yours.
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Our Charlotte Mason Morning Basket for the Early Years
Here’s the scoop on what’s in our Charlotte Mason morning basket for the preschool years.
We usually start out our morning time with prayer and then read a story from our Jesus Storybook Bible. We love this Bible for little ones, because it is an easy read, without be dumbed down. The illustrations are beautiful and it gets the interest of preschoolers.
We decided to purchase the gift edition instead of the original, because reviews said the binding is much stronger on this one, and we’ll be using this one for years to come with our kids.
Right now we’re just reading from start to finish, one story a day, but I’m sure around Christmas and Easter, we’ll probably skip around a little to cover those stories.
After we pray and read our Bible, we go on to our hymns. We sing a new hymn each month and will typically review an old one each morning time.
I do no expect my preschooler to memorize or recite the hymns.
This month we’re sining “Come, Ye Thankful People Come.” Last month we did “Nothing But the Blood’ and the month before that we started our homeschool off with “Jesus Loves Me.” Next month we’ll be singing “Amazing Grace.”
We print off our hymn sheet songs for free over at Hymnary.org. We also usually use YouTube to listen and sing along to. We’re a big fan of the S. Dizzle channel. She just sings so beautifully.
I know many homeschool moms like to go along with the hymn of the month over at Happy Hymnody or Ambleside Online, but we’ve just been picking and choosing so far.
Next, we have our character building books. This month we’re reading:
- All By Myself: Ever since my little man starting becoming mobile, my preschooler has really regressed in doing things by herself. This Little Critter book encourages independence, and it has really helped my preschooler start to try things on her own again.
- Have You Filled a Bucket Today?: I can’t recommend this book enough. This book is easy enough for my preschooler to understand, and sends such a strong message about being kind to one another.
- Mind Your Manners: A sweet book that teaches manners with a fun rhyming story.
- Manners Can Be Fun: This classic book covers basic manners and teaches why they’re so important. There’s even some blank pages at the back for your children to draw other manners they’ve learned.
After our character books, we usually move on to our poems.
Sometimes I’ll have specific poems picked out to fit with our current theme. Right now we’re reading poems about November and Thanksgiving. If we’re in an animal theme, I’ll pull some poems out of Eric Carle’s Animals Animals.
But we always read my kids’ favorite poems first. In A Child’s Book of Poems, my kiddos’ current favorites are “The Ostrich is a Silly Bird,” “The Kitten and the Falling Leaves,” and “Peas.”
I also keep some of our Nature Books in our morning basket.
The kids pull out Usborne’s 199 Birds book all the time. They just love pointing to all the different birds and learning what they’re called. It’s also been quite handy, because we’ve had so many birds in our backyard lately.
We also have the Usborne My First Reference Book About Nature, which is filled with fun little facts about plants and animals.
These books aren’t used very often yet, but I can see them being a staple in the years to come.
Nature Anatomy is a beautifully illustrated book that comes in real handy for homeschooling. Find ideas on how to use this book for nature study over at Simple Living Mama or Sparrow and Lilies.
The Burgess Bird Book and Burgess Animal Book are such neat tools for teaching young children facts about animals (without them even realizing it).
I pulled out a few stories from The Burgess Bird Book to read aloud to the kids last month when we were learning about owls. They are a bit longer, so I just read to the kids while they were eating lunch.
Lastly, we rotate through different themed living books. This month we have all Autumn/November/Thanksgiving living books:
In our basket, I also usually keep a clipboard, spare paper, and stickers for my preschooler to create with if she desires. I also have a toddler busy bin on hand to occupy my little guy.
Related
An Early Years Morning Time
I know our morning basket may seem like a lot, but nothing really takes more than 5 minutes.
We also don’t necessarily do everything each morning time. Sometimes we’ll read our themed living books randomly during the day or before bed time. And, sometimes if we’re busy or having a rough day, we’ll just skip morning time all together.
I’m all about the benefits of delayed formal lessons, so I certainly don’t require morning time. But my preschooler asks me for it almost every single day, and she usually lasts longer than I do!
Anyways, I hope this post gave you loads of ideas for your early years morning basket!
What About You?
We’d love to hear what’s in your morning time basket. Share your favorite tools for the early years in the comments below and be sure to share this post with other homeschool moms.
How did you get started doing this? I’ve started with my 3 year old, and a lot of mornings she resists. I keep it very simple to begin, only reading a page from each book (Mother Goose, child’s book of virtues, a poem book, and a kid’s Bible), but she often whines and says no mama don’t read to me.
We have done a few different things over the years. We have started out with some movement (action cards, yoga poses, etc.) and then moved on to reading. I have also read to the kids while they’re eating breakfast or lunch and while they’re doing quiet activities (coloring, stickers, play dough, etc.). You could also try just randomly reading out loud to yourself and she can just absorb whatever she hears. If she’s really resisting, maybe just take a break for a few weeks and try again. You’re already trying to keep it simple to start, so that’s great!
she is definitely still too young. every child is different but i also have a 3 year old who wants nothing to do with what i suggest so i let him lead the way. my 5 year old is different though so its most likely the age, i wouldnt worry 🙂