Redefining Our Purpose

Homeschooling is something that I always wanted to do. I longed to be with my children and learn with them. This year has been rough. I think it was that I had all 3 littles learning at different levels. It just didn't work for us. 

I began to pray and dig for ideas to help better unify our learning time. I wanted more learning together without leaving anyone behind or boring anyone.  I clicked through Pinterest ideas every chance I got. Finally, I stumbled upon 2 pins that have changed the way we learn: The Unplugged Family and Ponderings From My Heart. They both talked about morning baskets. 

This simple concept of deciding what is the most important thing I want my children to learn, and starting there was exactly what I needed to begin to change the way we were learning. I knew that I wanted my children to learn about God, His Word, and how to pray. But why wasn't I teaching it first? I couldn't answer that! That was the very moment I knew that change needed to happen!

I began by assembling our Morning Basket. I wanted to teach myself and the kiddos to start our day off with the Lord! I wanted to move aside and allow Him to be the first priority in our day!

Here is a glimpse at what we have right now. I know that there will be some tweaking the next few weeks as we find what works for us. I want quality not necessarily quantity.  A glimpse at our schedule:

We start our school day between 9-930. We begin with prayer. I pray and then we go around the table and each child has an opportunity to thank the Lord for the new day and just speak their hearts.

Next, is our Bible story time. Right now, we are using 'The Jesse Tree' as our lesson. This is the first year we have used this (I have a whole post about this coming soon).  After our story we work on our memory verse. This month it is Isaiah 9:6. The kiddos are great at memorization and I realized this is the best time to be hiding God's word in their little hearts!

Character study is up next. We are using "The 'Put On' Chart" by Doorposts. This month is all about kindness. It is a struggle in our house sometimes, but we are learning to treat others the way we want to be treated.

We sing a hymn or 2 for praise time. Then it's onto missions. Currently we are reading about Gladys Alward and China. We use this time to pray for missionaries in China, for radio broadcasts that speak of God's truth to reach the people of China, and for the children of China to know Jesus's love for them! 

Afterwards we work on memorizing the books of the Bible. We are starting with the Old Testament. It is a review for Popper, but I think that helps the younger 2 learn easier. We are using this song that I used as a child! It is a lot of fun and is really catchy:

We end our morning time in prayer for the rest of our day!


The middle part of the day is spent on our core subjects (Language Arts and Math). Then after lunch we have another basket time that I will share with you in my next post!