January 2019 Morning Basket | Let's Play School

Hooray, it’s a baby year in our house! Just about 3 more months (or less) until we meet our sweet boy. 2013, 2016 and now 2019 are all our family baby years in this house. We are slowing things way down over here (more to come on this) but our Morning Basket for sure has a new vibe as does our entire home. Slowing life down to soak up this season because babies don’t keep…

For January through end of March, our Morning Basket will take up the entire morning each day. It is going to be my time with the girls when no matter what, I will be 100% present. I will not be checking my phone at all in the morning and will actually be keeping it on it’s charger until late morning when Lucy goes down for her nap (11:30am). I’ll then be setting a timer for 10 minutes and once that timer goes off and time is up, the phone will go away again. The only time it will be out is if I want to get a picture of the girls or take a video – but it will not be time for anything other than using the camera. I just have really been enjoying the social media break and a break from all the noise. We have a lot going on and I don’t want to miss a thing (insert me singing Aerosmith).

Every night from 7:00-8:00pm will be my time to check Etsy messages, Instagram messages and emails. I will answer them in the order received and then once it’s 8:00pm it will be put away again so I can spend time with Matt. I will have working hours as well in the afternoons when we will be having some babysitter help so that I can get caught up on all the curriculums.

Lilly Belle will be doing any curriculum work during Lucy’s nap time only and whatever she gets to she gets to, whatever she doesn’t…she doesn’t. She is about a year ahead academically right now so we aren’t too worried about slowing down so much.

The girls and I got robes for Christmas so our Morning Basket time will be even more cozy. They wake up at about 6:30am and we start right then. So how is this going to look for our Morning Basket? What goodness will be filling our days together?

January Morning Basket Contents:

Story Alive – If you are not following Ashely over at The Littles and Me, you are missing out on a lot of goodness, joy, truth and just a lot of encouragement as a mom. I have had the pleasure of spending the day with Ashley in real life and she is just as full of goodness in real life as she is on her Instagram and blog. We love her children’s Bible Study curriculum, Story Alive. For January’s we will be using two of the units; one on sin and one on Noah’s Ark. We will read the bible stories together and do the related activities.

Write the Word for Kids – Lilly Belle loves this so much. We read the bible together and she loves copying from it and feeling like a big girl. She finds a lot of joy in this activity and anything that is bring so much goodness into her is fine by me. She does this activity about half on her own and half with me. While she is working not he copy work portion of that day, I am playing with Lucy next to her.

Bible used during this time: Jesus Storybook Bible

Let’s Play School Subscription – I finished January’s subscription super early. And I may or may not have had Morning Basket in mind while creating it. Both of the girls have activities from this month’s subscription that they will be able to enjoy each day. Everything from dressing up little paper dolls in winter clothing to Lilly Belle doing some winter poetry copy work. I’ve included some cute winter rhymes that I wrote for Lucy and all of your littles, a reading challenge, and of course fun math and reading games. The girls and I will do a few each morning. Lilly Belle will be doing the addition math facts activity and reading challenge everyday and I will be singing the rhymes to them each day and then after that we will pick one more to play together every morning. Our subscription releases on January 12th and I am excited for the winter theme so that these activities can be used by families all winter long.

Rooted Childhood – We recently discovered Rooted Childhood and have been in-love with it! It is absolutely perfect for our morning time together and a lead-in to our day. Rooted Childhood is filled with poems, short stories, finger plays, crafts, recipes and more. Since our Morning Basket already always has Bible, Poem and Fairy Tale each morning, Rooted Childhood will be taking the place for our fairy tale and poetry. The girls are loving the short stories there. The crafts and recipes have been new for us as they are more of a Charlotte Mason approach with crafts that are actual projects for the child to make things that are real and useful. Lilly Belle has loved knowing that she is making things that will actually be used and can be enjoyed for a long time. We will not be making a handicraft or recipe from here every single day, but by then end of each month, we will have completed them all. We are spreading them out and again – taking things slowly.

Picture Books – I am adding in picture books to our basket each month. These books are all chosen with lots of thought put into them. We are seriously purging our books over here to leave only what I feel is best for them at this time. We noticed that when we had too many books, we read less. We didn’t get to our favorites, they got lost in the shuffle. We have had two huge book sales and also donated over 100 books over the past few months. We still have an entire 9 cube shelf filled with books and 4 bookshelves in their room along with our morning basket, so they still have an enormous library, but not as overwhelming as before. Each morning I will be reading them a story or two from our Morning Basket choices. Again, we will be snuggled up on the couch together for this time each morning.

Poetry – Our poetry this month comes from the Let’s Play School Subscription and Rooted Childhood.

Busy Hands and Feet – For a lot of the time I am reading to the girls during our Morning Basket, the girls are eating breakfast. My plan moving forward is that while they eat their breakfasts (sitting at our coffee table) I will read the bible story to them. After that, they may be done eating and we usually lose Lucy to toys and running around a bit. She will play and come back to see what we are doing, play and come back, and so on. I want to see if I can keep her with us a bit longer. So after bible is when I will read them a picture book snuggled up. After this time, I’ll have her attention again and we can see if she would like to join us for any of the activities. Otherwise, she can color at our easel (from Ikea), play on our balance board, or look through our picture books.

And that will be our Morning Basket time each day. It’s filled with lots of handcrafts, stories, poetry, Bible time and just lots of time together. I’m pretty excited about it. We have family coming into town this month (Matt’s parents and then my dad) and I intend on continuing our basket each day while they are here and I’m sure they’ll like to join us – especially Nana.

I hope you all have a great start to the New Year! It’s going to be a great one – I can feel it!