It is definitely a characteristic of mine that when I am faced with increasingly chaotic circumstances, I respond with lists and routines. This is ironic given that I find it impossible to stick to a proper routine myself but I definitely like to impose them on others, particularly the kiddos (and really, by kiddos I mean Evelina as I defy anyone to impose anything on Austin). I was also driven by something more meaningful than a need for routine, though. I have been finding my days spent mainly between working, cooking and cleaning, and entertaining Austin; Evelina was definitely getting the short end of the stick when it came to my time. I wanted to spend some meaningful time with Evelina and Austin so I decided to adjust our morning routine to make sure that every day, we were spending time, learning and discovering things together.
Drawing on the great wealth of homeschooling ideas online, I found a common activity called Morning Baskets. These are baskets of books and resources which families would work through all together, all ages participating. The baskets are worked through in a loop so after spending a bit of time in one book, it is put the back of the basket and it is picked up again when all the other books have been looked at, whenever that may be. We decided to look at four books today but I will be playing it by ear to see what works each day.
Our books are as follows:
- Hidden Planet by Ben Rothery
- Peter Pan, retold in rhyme by Caryl Hart and Sarah Warburton
- My First 100 words (Usborne)
- Lift the Flap Questions and Answers about Science (Usborne)
- My Encyclopaedia of Very Important Things (DK)
- Peter and the Wolf by Vasily Petrenko (via Amazon Music) read by Alexander Armstrong and played by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
- I am the Seed that Grew the Tree: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year selected by Fiona Water (National Trust)
- The RSC Teacher Toolkit for Teachers
- The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
- The Usborne Big Book of Numbers (Usborne)
- The Twits by Roald Dahl (this might change to another Dahl book when we get there)
This morning we made it a bit of a ritual. We made sure we were all dressed and had breakfast. We lit a candle. We sat somewhere comfy (they started in the teepee then moved to the sofa so they could spread out a bit). It was really lovely. Evelina and I both really enjoyed it and I am already looking forward to tomorrow’s morning basket time.
