Beauty, Truth, and Goodness - A 5 Minute Morning Basket

When I did my last Day in a Life post, some of you noticed that our morning basket time only lasted for 5 minutes. That is our average time.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of a morning basket, it's essentially a set of things at the beginning of the day that starts your day with beauty, goodness, and truth. Exactly what that entails will vary drastically between families, and within the same family at different times. I encourage you to tailor your morning basket to what works in your family.

Our morning basket time consists of:
Bible
Music
Poetry
Art

Bible: we read a page or two from our children's Bible. We use this one that is on the MODG syllabus.

Music: listen or sing along to a hymn. Catholic Chant has a great list by grade level with tracks and lyrics. We also listen to the local classical station in the car.

Poetry: This will likely expand as more kids age into our homeschool, but the schooling kids are working on memorizing poems. Even if you don't use MODG, I highly recommend Laura Burquist's The Harp and the Laurel Wreath as a great resource for finding poems. Kindergarten is all Robert Lewis Stevenson, so that's who we visit every morning!

Art: This is very basic right now. We either do a little activity with our art cards (I have these, but I also picked up a pack of postcards from various art museums at a homeschool conference for a dollar) or a simple art project. This normally starts the preschooler on her work for the morning while I start the Kindergartner on things like math and handwriting.

This is meant to be short and sweet, but it will vary on time when we're doing something different (like starting a new poem or doing a more involved craft during art). Here's how we keep morning basket a simple part of our day, instead of a dreaded add on:

Don't be a perfectionist

Kids don't automatically show appreciation for these things. Learning how to memorize a poem is work. Bible stories have weird names in them. Gregorian chant can be tricky.

If I don't stress out about doing something perfect the first time, it's much better for all of us.

However, don't take this to mean never press kids to try again! I have my kindergartner repeat phrases that he missed the first time in poetry, and I remind him it's much easier to correct a mistake right away than to fix something learned incorrectly. 

But do I make them re-sing a song where they jumbled the Latin pronunciation? Nope. Because exact pronunciation is not the goal of music time.

Goal is exposure and steady embodiment

The point of doing a morning basket is to start the slow and steady trickle of goodness and beauty that will become ingrained in the kids, and will become part of their database of things they recognize. When they hear Tantum Ergo at church, it's not something completely over their heads. They know the tune, and they can sing along a little. Starting that basis of understanding is huge!

Have everything in one place

Maybe it's not a literal basket, but do keep everything you need for your morning basket time in one place. You are far more likely to do it if you're not running around the house trying to find a book, or if the art cards are perpetually going missing.

All Together Everybody!

I believe strongly in whole family learning, and the morning basket is a great place for everyone to work on something together. Everyone, from a toddler to a high schooler, can find something in a work of art or piece of beautiful music that is meaningful and interesting. It is almost certainly not the same something, but I find most children enjoy participating in a group and having something that clearly begins the school day.

Short and Sweet

Really try to keep what you consider to be morning basket time between 5-10 minutes. Longer than that and it's not reasonable for the little ones, shorter and it basically never happened for big kids.
This might mean that some subjects get shifted to other times. When we get to the grammar stage (about 3rd grade) poetry might be introduced in morning basket, but we will need more time to work on the poems than in the 5-10 minute time allotted.

Be Flexible

You might find that you need to mix up the subjects in your morning basket. There are weeks, like when we have just started a new poem, when I will shift art to be in the afternoon. I know that the poetry will take up more time right then, but it needs to be in the beginning of the day to make sure it gets done.

There are no hard and fast rules about how you have to do, or what to include in, a morning basket!

Follow with Focus or Letting Off Steam

Depending on the kid, and the day, I will follow morning basket with either a focus (moving onto math) or letting off steam (10 minute outside recess!) It's very apparent in the 5-10 minutes of morning basket time if each kid is ready to start their day or not. Some times one, or all, of us need another chance to start again. In that case, we take a 10 minute break (I set a timer) and everyone can disperse until the timer goes off. Then we come back and I hand out assignments.

Do you do morning basket in your house? What does that look like? Those the idea of a morning basket intrigue you?