Schooling with Littles :: Our Morning Basket

Like I mentioned last time, I'm working through a little series on Schooling with Littles.  Yesterday, I posted an overview of our daily schedule.

Our schooling routine basically has three blocks: Morning Basket, Naptime School, and Independent Work. Today I want to talk about Morning Basket, our version of Circle Time. I've written about it in bits and pieces over the past couple years, but the Morning Basket is what I call our family work.  Although it starts in the morning, it usually continues into the afternoon.  And it's not actually kept in a basket--more like a half-shelf on the bookcase by the dining table.  But I borrowed the name years ago from the always-inspiring Jen, when my oldest two were preschoolers and it actually was done in the morning, out of a basket.

I'm only teaching one grade formally (my two oldest are in second grade, and my next won't start kindergarten until fall), so ours is quite simple to put together; I don't have to juggle a large age range yet. My goal during this learning time is to hit some of my second graders' scheduled assignments while involving the littles as well.

Some of our Morning Basket stays the same year in and out. Some of it changes by term. And some is month-to-month, as the liturgical calendar changes or as we switch out learned memory work for new selections. So it's in constant flux, but the rhythm remains the same.

Since we do this work while the littles are alongside, I have a few requirements before I schedule an activity for the Morning Basket:
:: it must be able to be done with a little background noise from the toddlers
:: it shouldn't require lots of sitting-still or hands-off time (and if I can do it with a baby on my lap, even better!)
:: it should be naturally interesting to my little ones
:: it shouldn't involve narrations (I don't like for my children to be interrupted while they're narrating)
:: it must be able to be paused at a moment's notice

That last one is important. We begin our Morning Basket work during breakfast (pro tip: read while they're eating!), get as far as we can, and finish up the rest in the afternoon. Some days baby is happy with breakfast in her high chair and we get through it all without interruption. Most days I stop halfway, send the kids outside to play, and then I finish up later on while the littlest is napping.

Here's a snapshot of our Morning Basket plans for this month:

Religion (daily)
:: Seasonal Reading - February is traditionally the month of the Holy Family, so we're focusing on the litany of St. Joseph.  At the end of the month, we'll start our Lenten readings--more on that as the season approaches.

:: Feast Day Reading - from our two-volume set of Saints for Young People for Every Day of the Year, which helpfully follows the traditional calendar (as we do)

:: Scheduled Reading - one page weekly from Robert Hugh Benson's Old Testament Rhymes (our other scheduled religion readings are more involved, so I save them for later on in the day, but these are short so we can do them all together)

Calendar Work in English and Italian (daily)

Memory Work (daily) - includes review of that day's items from our memory "notebook" as well as our current selections:
:: Hymn - "Pange Lingua Gloriosi"
:: Folk Song - "California, Here I Come" and "I Love You, California"
:: Bible - the Nunc Dimittis and the Magnificat
:: Poetry - Christina Rossetti's "Rushes in a Watery Place," "Hurt No Living Thing," "Fly Away Fly Away," and "What Do the Stars Do"

Italian (daily) - We cover new concepts, games, and conversation later in the day, but we do our Italian memory work with the littles:
:: Rhymes - "Batti, batti le manine," "Questo e l'occhio bello," and "Capra capretta" from Filastrocche Italiane
:: Songs - "Testa, spalle, ginocchie, i piedi" and "Sei papere" from Teach Me Everyday Italian
:: Series - "I Get Ready to Go."

Poetry (daily)
One or more poems from Christina Rossetti's Fly Away Fly Away Over the Sea

Art Study (weekly)
Albrecht Durer's"Self Portrait in a Fur Coat" and "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

Music Study (weekly)
Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and "Symphony No. 9"

And bonus: my next daughter will be starting kindergarten in the fall, and I think the Morning Basket work (which she already joins us for) plus a bit of math and reading practice now and then will make for a perfectly lovely kindergarten year.

Next week, I'll talk a bit about Naptime School.  (ETA: Here it is!)