If you don’t know what a Morning Basket is, go here. Let’s talk about ideas for a summer morning basket. These are are more for ages 8 and up. If you want ideas for under 8 scroll to the very bottom of this post. I love using Morning Basket time to share a sense of wonder for all that is good, true and beautiful. It’s just such a fun, sustainable way to share poetry, art, science, history, and more, all while snuggled on the couch, or now that it’s summer, somewhere outside enjoying the fresh air.

It’s truly a lovely way to begin the day. But don’t get hung up on the time of day you use it. It can also be used in the afternoon or evening. If used in the morning, you can use it to gently transition you and your children from sleep to wakefulness. Or use it during breakfast time while the kiddos are eating (after you’ve eaten earlier since you will be reading/talking and not eating yourself) or use it after the breakfast dishes are done.

What’s most important about a Morning Basket? Two things:

1. Being consistent in using it most or many of the days of the week

2. Using it to cultivate wonder and connection.

If you see glazed over eyes or resistance, switch out the contents until you see a spark in your child’s eyes. Let them pick out instrumental music to play softly in the background. If hands are fidgety and you are not eating food during this time, have some fidget toys, coloring/drawing/activity books that don’t take much thinking, or handicrafts available.

OK, let’s talk about some books and games to put in your Morning Basket for summer. If your children are younger, definitely don’t use all these ideas. If your children are older, than they may have the attention span for all of these ideas I list below. You know your children best of course and can plan accordingly. Feel free to add in the things you and your children love to learn about.

-Start with today’s date and what happened on this day in history. I like to do this year-round for the start of Morning Basket time. The books above and below are sample resources, the one above geared more for younger folk and the one below for older, since it’s black and white and has few pictures/illustrations. Be prepared to edit on the fly as you read aloud the events, according to the sensitivities and attention span of your children.

-Tell a scripture story (you can use the scripture story books sold by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here. If you want to get fancy and it would appeal to your young children, use the flannelboard figures collected over here. That’s a link to the website of veteran homeschooling mom of many, Montserrat Wadsworth. She has links there to all the flannelboard stories published by the Church in the Friend magazine, and they are already colored! So amazing! Thank you Monteserrat! (Decades ago when I was a young mom of 3, my sweet sister-in-law printed the black and white figures out, colored them, and mounted them on flannel, and put them all in a bag with a little flannelboard, for a Christmas gift to me. I can only imagine the hours she spent coloring these figures to make this gift of labor and love. We are so blessed by technology these days to save time coloring such things!)

-Read one contemporary faith-in-God promoting story from the Church magazines. Read for free online here or in the Gospel Library app on your phone, subscribe for hard copy issues here. I have some of the stories organized in monthly/seasonal themes in my free devotionals ebook here. The Friend is for children ages 3-11, For Strength of Youth is for ages 11-18, and the Liahona is for adults.

-Sing a hymn or seasonal song, and/or learn the history of hymns, one a day. The Mr. Pipes books make it fun. (My devotionals ebook here has gospel-themed songs arranged by seasons and holidays)

-Do memorization work, yay! (This is a reminder to me to get back to doing with this with my son.) Watch a video by my friend LaDawn Jacob about the benefits of memorization below.

+scripture memorization, where you work on memorizing one scripture together (LaDawn Jacob’s free scripture collection is here). Then whenever you let your child use an electronic device later in the day and week, have them recite the scripture before they get to use the device.

This book is also a great guide for memorization.

+poetry sharing and/or memorization (go here for LaDawn Jacob’s free poetry collection).

Here’s a video above that talks about all the interesting things you can memorize with your children, thanks to Sheri of ourlifehomeschooling.com (I love watching her videos, she has such a peaceful, joyful and calming spirit.) Then over here is a list from Pam Barnhill of things to memorize. Pam tells how she does memory work in her homeschool below.

-Read one classic picture book a day. You get bonus points of delight if you read something that fits in with the season (summertime themed picture books are here, and then I have some patriotic picture books displayed here)

-Read a patriotic story from the book above or below. If your children are younger, than skip the one above. The one below is better suited to younger children.

This video below shows a ton of fun American patriotic resources for a summer morning basket.

-Learn from a page or two a day from a book about nature, such as one of those below.

-Study a card or a page a day about the night sky.

Read one or two pages a day about a National Park.

-Play a short card game like Professor Noggins games, Laurence King nature-themed bingo or card games, or a math or word game to sharpen those language and math skills.

Do a Mad Libs/Ad Libs/Fill in the Blank game to learn/review grammar. When I was young, I loved doing these, laughing uproariously at the results. They come in all sorts of summer themes: camping, animals, National Parks, etc. Keep a pencil in the basket to go with it.

End your Morning Basket time with a summer-themed read aloud of a chapter book, go here and here for suggested titles. If you aren’t used to reading aloud, start with 5 minutes a day and gradually lengthen the time. Reading aloud picture books and chapter books is the best part about homeschooling! Go here for more reading aloud resources here on my blog.

Happy Morning Basket time to you! It’s one of the best parts of homeschooling, but you don’t have to homeschool to enjoy it. You can use it regardless of where your children attend school.

P.S. Moms can have Morning Baskets too. Go here to see some of those.