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Morning basket has always been hit or miss since I began homeschooling my kids 7 years ago.
Part of that is because I’ve tried to emulate what I saw online from other homeschool moms. And the other part is because I genuinely didn’t know how morning basket could actually work for our family.
Over the years, our morning basket has consisted of everything from picture books, to read alouds and family subjects. At one point, last year actually, it consisted of independent work, so that I could get things done before I sat down to teach. Honestly, morning basket was an epic fail this last homeschool year. Most mornings, it was still extremely chaotic; kids needed help with independent work, my toddler was jumping everywhere, and my head was not into math first thing in the morning.
So, for this year, I decided to really sit down and reflect on our family culture. I really wanted morning basket to be a time in the morning that was genuine and came naturally for our family, versus forcing certain subjects and curricula just to say that we did it. Our system, this year, is simple and functional.
Time in the word
Every day, we will start off by spending time in the Bible together. The plan is to alternate between our devotionals and apologetics curriculum. We are almost done with the I AM Devotional by Diana M. Stortz and once that’s done with, we’ll Indescribable by Louie Giglio.
For apologetics, we’re going to continue through Year 1 Creation – Joseph and then go right into Year 2 Moses – Hosea.
MORNING PAGES
My girls and I are avid journalers (is that even a word?) so it seemed fitting to me for us to have a short journaling session. Have you ever heard of Morning Pages? It’s this whole thing by Julia Cameron. I’ve never read her book, so I can’t really recommend it, but way before this became popular online, I’ve always done a sort of morning pages myself.
I thought it would be a great idea, for my girls to sit down for 10 minutes every morning, and just write about anything and everything. That way, they empty out their brains and are ready to focus on the more difficult subjects later on.
Handwriting
While my girls are doing their morning pages, my oldest son will be working on his handwriting. He is currently finishing up A Reason for Handwriting Level K, and once he’s done, he will be starting Handwriting Without Tears First Grade Level.
My girls will be working on 180 Days of Cursive Level C and Level D throughout the school year. They won’t have to do this every day, because they will already be journaling, but it will be sprinkled in every so often for extra practice.
As I said, morning basket will be simple and functional this year for us. It’s what works for us and what is part of our family culture. After we spend this time together in the mornings, we will jump into chores and then any family subjects and independent work that needs to be done. I’m feeling really good about morning basket for the 2026-2027 homeschool year.
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