We’re diving into our new school year this month and with a new year comes new books in our Morning Basket. Our morning basket is a collection of books that cover history, geography, read alouds, poetry, art, music, and nature study as well as a game or two. They come from the homeschool curriculum we follow, our own collection or just gems we find at the library and want to read together.
Our Morning Basket Routine
We’ll read our morning basket books little by little throughout the month. Some books are read most days. Others, like music and art, may only be read once a week. I usually do the read aloud chapter book during breakfast time. (Picture books can be hard to handle and show the pictures while the kids are eating). Once breakfast is done and the kids are ready for the day, we’ll jump into some of the other books before starting our seated school work. Sometimes, we’ll spread the books throughout the day. There’s no hard and fast rules about how to do morning basket time. Hint: It doesn’t even have to be in the morning! Find what works for your family and know that it can change as your homeschool rhythm changes.
Our school year is starting mid-August so I didn’t try to load up our basket with a whole month’s worth of books. These are some of the books that we’ll be reading during the first two weeks of our history, geography and literature studies. I plan to use the music and art books and the game each once a week. Since the first few weeks of the school year are all about finding our groove, I’m not going to try to cram everything in and it’ll be just fine if we don’t get to everything I do plan. The point is to touch on a wide variety of topics through many books throughout the school year.
Morning Basket Books- August 2018
Here’s a look at our August morning basket book list.
My Side of the Mountain – We started this at the beginning of the month to get a jump start on one of our books for the school year. We’ll finish it before our year officially starts. This will be our first Brave Writer Arrow this year. I like to get a head start on the book before jumping into the Arrow and so we started this early.
Pedro’s Journal – This is in the history part of the Bookshark level 3 program we’ll be doing for Storyteller’s 4th grade year.
Walk the World’s Rim – This is in the literature part of Bookshark’s level 3 which ties into history for this level.
A Child’s Introduction to Poetry – Poetry geared toward Storyteller’s age (4th grade). This comes with Bookshark’s level 3 and will be used throughout the year. I’m really excited for this book! It starts with the different types of poetry and then moves on to highlighting different poets. It includes not only a poem or three from famous poets but it also has a page about the poet.
The Llama Who Had No Pajama – Poetry geared toward Comedian’s age (1st grade). This comes with Bookshark’s level K and will be also used throughout the year. This book is a well known and well loved children’s poetry book.
The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose – I always include some Mother Goose or Aesop’s Fables. This is meant for my Comedian but Storyteller still loves to listen in on these too.
The Boxcar Children – Read Aloud book for Comedian. She remembers this from when I read it for Storyteller’s 1st grade year but she still wants to listen to it again. We may opt for the audio book through our library. There’s also a cartoon movie on Amazon Prime. It’s not great quality but the girls enjoy it.
The Usborne Classical Music Reference Book – We have two Usborne music books that we’ll be using throughout the year with both kids. This book goes through the history of classical music. Once we finish this book, we’ll move on to Usborne’s Famous Composers Reference Book.
The Usborne Book of Famous Artists – This is one of two Usborne art books that we’ll be using throughout the year. It highlights 35 artists and some of their most well known paintings. Once we finish this book, we’ll move on to Usborne’s Book of Famous Paintings which goes into more detail about 35 paintings.
Snap It Up! – addition and subtraction card game. Comedian will be able to play this now with a bit help. Storyteller prefers drill worksheets instead of math games. (How crazy is that?!) But I’m hoping to get her to play.
So, that’s it! We’re keeping it easy for August. We’ll add some more variety in September once we find our rhythm in the new school year.
What books are in your morning basket this month?
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