I say this every month, but every month it is true…I’m so excited about this Morning Basket! We are going to be doing school a lot more relaxed through the end of the year. In the morning I will be lighting a candle, turning on the Christmas lights and music and we’ll snuggle up on the couch and living room rug for Morning Basket. We rearranged our furniture and got a new coffee table. It’s going to make Morning Basket time so much more cozy. And I love cozy at Christmas time! I’m now 22 weeks pregnant and by the end of the year I’ll be 27 weeks and probably getting a bit uncomfortable. So, bring on the cozy and relaxed! We’ll be drawing a lot, reading the Bible a lot, working on some sticker books, playing games and I’ll be doing some serious reading aloud with the girls each morning.
Here we go! Christmas Morning Basket 2018 – Girls ages: Lilly Belle about 5 years 4 months, Lucy about 2 years 1 month.
Bible:
Lilly Belle really wanted to start this back up again, so I got out her Write the Word for Kids book. I also got her the Adventure Bible to start reading with her Write the Word for Kids. She loves to journal and do copy work writing so this is right up her alley. I also found the girls a copy of The Very First Christmas from The Beginner’s Bible. We will read this story together often throughout the holiday. The girls will also be working in their Nativity Usborne First Sticker Books! They both love these and I love that for this one it has a really nice story along with it on each page. Lilly Belle will most likely fly though this because she could sit for hours filling them up. Lucy will do a few here and there over the course of the next month.
Poetry / Music:
For our usual poetry time this month, we will be learning and studying Christmas Carols with the Squilt Christmas Carols Volume One. I purchased this for the girls last year and Lilly Belle was a bit too young so we just touched on it, but this year we are going to get to dive in a lot more. Lilly Belle takes private voice and piano lessons as well as a Musical Theater and Group Voice class each week, so many of these music theory concepts will be things she knows already so I’m not worried now about it being overwhelming.
We will also be doing The Nutcracker Holiday Unit Study from Squilt Music! Lilly Belle will be doing this one as a research project. She is Obsessed (with a capital O) with the Nutcracker. She can audition when she is 7 and she is on a serious mission to be ready. As a dance teacher, this will be a lot of fun for me as well. I think we will really dive in deep with this and make it into a big thing. I may try to teach her some dances along with her learning the story more and lots of vocabulary and little projects to go along with this.
We will also be working on learning to play some Christmas songs on the piano together. For some handwriting practice this month, Lilly Belle will be using our Let’s Play School Christmas Songs Copy Work and Tracing pack.
Fairy Tales / Stories:
This one is going to make Lucy super happy! I picked up a copy of the 5 Minute Christmas Stories Disney. Each morning we will read a new story together from this book. Once we have read them all, we just start over. There are 12 stories included in this book and we usually do Morning Basket 4 days a week. This month we will most likely be doing Morning Basket on Sundays as well as a way to spend time together and remember to slow down and just enjoy each other. And again…because I’m pregnant and super tired lately.
Art:
I bought this Learn to Draw…Christmas! book for Lilly Belle last year and she loved it so much. I was excited to get it out again for her. There are 50 Christmas pictures included with some step by step drawing instruction for each. I also added in a few of the Target Dollar Spot blank books for her that I had left over from last Christmas. She can choose to draw while I read aloud or she can do this activity once Morning Basket is coming to an end or during Lucy’s nap time.
I also have a set of the Usborne Magic Painting Christmas Cards included in here for her. It includes 10 cards with envelopes and also a brush. She paints over the pictures with water and then once dry, she can write in that card the next day and we can send them out to family and friends. She eats this stuff up! Anything with making things for people, she’s all about it.
For Lucy I have included a copy of the Usborne Little First Stickers Christmas. There are over 300 reusable stickers she can play with. She likes to peel and stick stickers on lately so this will be fun to play with her while Lilly Belle is working on drawing or painting her Christmas cards.
Read Aloud Books:
Nutcracked – We’re pretty excited about this book! I will read them a few chapters every morning and play The Nutcracker orchestra music in the background. During this time they will be allowed to use anything from the Morning Basket and they may also go and grab a box from our Christmas Learning Shelf (I will link once I have it posted here).
A Boy Called Christmas – This story sounds so cute! It is the story of how Santa became Santa. There are pictures and I think this will be a fun and quick read aloud for the girls. We read aloud during Morning Basket, lunch, bath and bed time so between all of that, I know we will for sure read through both of these plus many, many more this month.
Sight Words Practice:
I have included two of our Let’s Play School Christmas Sight Words activities here in Morning Basket and I want to play both with her each morning. She is so close to knowing all of the Dolch Primer Sight Words now and just has a few she is stuck on. I added in the tracing activity as well as the Journey to the North Pole board game.
Extra for Lucy:
Christmastime Is Here! is an adorable Little People book. Both of our girls absolutely love these books as toddlers and early preschoolers. Lilly Belle read them all-the-time when she was little and now Lucy is loving them a ton. I like to have the holiday ones and we also have a few Disney ones. Lucy will just sit and lift all the flaps while I am reading or while Lilly Belle is working on something. Sometimes she wants me to read it to her, but mostly, both of the girls like/d to just sit quietly and look at these independently.
Phonics Practice:
I love adding in our Let’s Play School Kindergarten Bingo games for Morning Basket time. Lilly Belle always loves playing bingo, and these games have been helping her a lot of reading skills she is working on.
That does it! That’s our Christmas Morning Basket 2018!