Morning Basket 2015-2016 :: Term 3

First, a note: I use the term "Morning Basket" to refer to all the work we do together as a family, even with the littles. Even though I call it Morning Basket for organizational purposes, it is really broken up into two parts: one done over breakfast, and the rest done at the end of our Naptime School block. Our Morning Basket is still very much the same as we have done it for the past few years, so if you'd like to read more specifics about how it works for us, you can read about how we structure it and prior selections.

A look at our Morning Basket plans for Term 3 of this year...

Over Breakfast

Calendar Work - in English and Italian (daily)

Poetry - one poem from each of our poets for the term, William Wordsworth for Year 4 and A.A. Milne for Year 1 (daily)

Short Reading - from a couple of the following:
:: Hillyer's A Child's Geography of the World (two chapters per week)
:: Flos Sanctorum (verses for the week based on the liturgical year)
:: The New St. Joseph Baltimore Catechism No. 1 (one section per week)
:: Amy Steedman's Legends of Italy (one chapter per week)
:: Amy Steedman's Read-Aloud Book of Bible Stories (New Testament chapters)
:: The Epistle of St. Timothy from the Douay-Rheims Bible (bit by bit)
:: Family in Feast and Feria's "Lent for Children: A Thought a Day" (daily)

Extra Religion Reading - Since Cate is in the last few months of sacramental preparation, I'm doing some extra reading from her "First Communion shelf" a couple times a week during Morning Basket, particularly of the books that will interest the little kids also: Mother Loyola's The King of the Golden City and Leading Little Ones to Mary.

Read-Aloud - With any breakfast time I have left before the babies start fussing, I read from one of our scheduled read-alouds: Gone-Away Lake and Reb and the Redcoats.

In the Afternoon

Memory Work (daily) - includes review of that day's items from our memory "notebook" as well as time spent on our current selections:
:: Hymns - Dear Guardian of Mary, Adoremus Te Christe, On This Day, Bring Flowers of the Fairest
:: Folk Songs - O Dear What Can The Matter Be, Billy Boy, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Come Along Little Dogeys
:: Bible - ongoing memorization of The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:2-17)
:: Prayers - Apostles' Creed in Latin (just reviewing), the Words of Consecration (in Latin and English), the prayers of the Divine Mercy chaplet
:: Poetry - For Cate, AA Milne's "Halfway Up" and more of choice; For the Big Kids, Wordsworth's "Daffodils" and "To a Skylark" and more of choice
:: Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream 5.1 (Theseus' "Lovers and madmen" speech), The Winter's Tale 4.3.1-4 (Autolycus on spring) and 4.4.446-448 (Perdita on "the self-same sun")

We move on to a new selection once we have the previous selection memorized rather than on a regular schedule, so our plans are just that--plans.  I update our Memory Work index with the ones we cover as we go along.

Italian Memory Work (daily) - The older three and I cover new concepts, games, and conversation during naptime, but we usually do our Italian memory work with the littles around:
:: Rhymes - "Pin pin cavallin" and "La Vispa Teresa" from Filastrocche Italiane
:: Songs - "Tu canterai" and "Cosi fan" from Teach Me Everyday Italian
:: Series - "I can do many things" ...and another series TBD ;)

Picture Study on John William Waterhouse (once weekly) - two weeks for each piece, alternating between observation/narration and a picture sketch

Music Study on Palestrina (once weekly) - including attentive listening and discussion