Morning Basket Questions

Lots of people have emailed me, and a few commented, on my Morning Basket post last week. Thanks for all of the kindness and warmth!   Especially since I was basically copying a lovely idea orginated by uber-homeschool mom Jen. As an aside I strongly recommend waiting until the kids are in bed pouring a nice cup of tea or a glass of wine and spending an hour or so going through Jen's blog. It's full of lovely ideas.

If you are an Angels, Mets or Red Sox fan, you'll have some time tonight. (hee hee hee)

Sorry. Had to do it.

Anyway. The questions. Lots of people wanted to know how long all of this takes. It really depends but generally it takes between a half hour and forty-five minutes. Which isn't very long. I try to begin at 8:30 but since Brendan is not a sleeper we sometimes start at 9:00. No big deal.

How did I decide what to include in the morning basket?  Well, much of it was inspired by Jen but I also thought that for the basket idea to work for me it would have to include those things that I wanted to get to in my school plans but never seemed to have time for. The workbox system has helped tremendously with that but I always have some little enrichment type things I like to include.  I took the nature suggestions of Jen's by subscribing to Nature Friend Magazine which turned out to be every bit as valuable as she said. The kids love the articles and the photography has inspired some nice drawing.

Katie's rendering of a bird.

I rounded out everyone's religion studies with the catechism (always a good beginning to the day) and the Acts of the Apostles and then I just picked things that are seasonal or tangenital to what we are doing. Does that make sense?

Do you do it every morning?

Ah, no. As a matter of fact I haven't done it at all this week since I have a horrible cold and I actually lost my voice over the weekend and I am still raspy and hard to understand. My voice is grating on my nerves so it must be driving the kids crazy. On the upside they had a quiet weekend :).

Another thing worth mentioning is that the basket pretty much lives on my long dining room table so morning basket can be a lunch or dinner basket if that works better on some days. It's important not to get caught up so much in what I do or in what Jen or anyone else does but make things work for your family and do the things they enjoy. My basket might bore your children to tears so explore your children's interest. Or bookmark this post and categorize it "next year" and don't put pressure on yourself.

Have a blessed evening.