Morning Basket: Ages 3 & 1

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When explaining our daily rhythm from last year, I noted that part of our morning was devoted to basket time.

Basket time was born out of listening to Pam Barnihill’s Podcast, Your Morning Basket. It is a special time where we cuddle up on the couch and read together from books in our basket. If no “school” work got done, but we did basket time, I called it a good day!

Here’s what our basket time looked like last year.

 

• We began with a prayer from the Little Golden Book Prayers for Children. We usually repeated the same one for about 4-6 weeks, then chose a new one.
• We read a Bible story from A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories. When we had read all the stories we began with a new children’s Bible.
• We sang a hymn from our hymnal. We did not do this to begin with, but I added it in mid-year or so. We only sang one verse until Josiah knew it and then we added the next one. We learned one song: “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less.”
• Counted to 20 || We started at 10 and just kept adding new numbers.
• Said the ABCs while pointing to a chart || Sometimes we went out of order. Sometimes we did only half the chart. Sometimes we ditched the chart completely. I just followed Josiah’s lead. I didn’t want him to hate this time.
• Said a Bible verse (We did Genesis 1:1, Psalm 23:1-3a, John 1:1, and John 1:14 I just flipped to it in the Bible and read it and he joined in on the parts he knew. Sometimes I’d stop on a word and let him complete it. He eventually began asking to say them himself.
• Read a page from an alphabet book || Each day was a different book. We rotated through My Little Golden Dictionary, My first ABC board book, Big Thoughts for Little People, and letter books at our library by Bela Davis. So last week was letter D, so we would just read the “D page” from each one of those books. And then the Letter D book by Bela Davis. On the last day of a letter I filled a backpack with items that start with the sound. For example for letter D it was: dollar, diaper, dinosaur, dishwasher liquid, duck, digger, etc. This was his favorite part!
• Poetry and Songs || I just have some mother goose books in there and pick out some that go with the letter. So for J I did Jack be Nimble, for F we sang “Once I Caught a Fish Alive.”
• We read a page out of Richard Scarry’s Please and Thank You Book. I was unsure about this one, but it was Josiah’s favorite part. When we finished this book Josiah had just gotten a big bug book for Christmas, so we put it in the basket and read a chapter a day because he loves bugs. Then when that book was complete we moved to Richard Scarry’s Busy, Busy, Town. Once finished, we began Tracks, Scats, and Signs. Basically, Josiah’s interests inspired this part of basket time.
• Chapter Book Reading || If we had a chapter book we were reading, it went here and we read a chapter a day. We read both the My Father’s Dragon and Mercy Watson series with great success.
• Ended in prayer

I can confidently say basket time was Josiah’s favorite part of the day. He frequently asked to do it again. I had every intention to start it back up after a brief hiatus this summer, but I never did. He has asked for it all summer!

If you are here to get ideas for your own basket time with your preschooler, you will certainly have different resources. Include topics and authors your child will look forward to. For us it was bugs, Richard Scarry, and scat!

Do you do basket time with your littles? I’d love to hear about books you enjoy with your kids.

Check back to find out what we are doing in basket time this year!