 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica, and today's video is a homeschool show and tell. The homeschool show and tell is an open collaboration hosted by Abby from Rooted and Rest and myself. Our goal with the homeschool show and tell was really just to showcase that there's not one right way to homeschool. So we do that by bringing homeschoolers from around the world together each and every month to share their take on a specific topic. This month's topic is morning time in your homeschool and I'm so excited about this because it's something that we've done for a very long time in our homeschool and I love seeing different takes on that topic like how people incorporate it into their homeschool so I can't wait to watch. I'm gonna leave the link to the playlist in the description box so that you can watch all of the videos on it. Now before I start talking about morning baskets, I really, really wanna emphasize that morning baskets don't have to be done in the morning. They don't have to include what ours includes. It can literally be just like everything else in your homeschool and it can reflect flexibility and freedom for whatever works for you. We've gone through periods where our morning baskets have happened in the morning. We've gone through periods when they've happened in the afternoon. We've gone through periods when they've happened at bedtime. We've did years of having a bedtime basket. So first of all, you can do it anytime of day just because we're calling it morning time and morning baskets doesn't mean it has to be done in the morning. And then second of all, you can include anything you want. I personally include four main things in our morning time and the reason I include those four main things is that for us, morning time or our morning basket or basket time no matter what time it happens in our house is the foundation of our homeschool day. And so because it's just Emily and I, typically sometimes Kevin will join us but because it's just Emily and I and because it's what we start our homeschool day with, I like to lay a foundation of connection because that's what's important to me in our homeschooling. That's the number one thing I want to foster is connection. So the things that I include foster that. They helped me and Emily connect with each other and there are things that she loves so that I'm filling her love tank and filling her bucket before we dive into academics later. Not that the things that happen during our morning time are not academic but that's not always my goal with them. I don't kind of make our morning time with the intention of these are the things that we're going to learn. I make it with this is the experience we're going to have, this is the stuff we're going to connect over. So with that being said, the things that I include in our morning basket always no negotiations and no exceptions because they're important to her are mad libs and trivia because those are two things she absolutely loves. Read aloud because I love the discussions and the connections that we have with the real out. So I will normally have multiple real outs because I'll read a chapter from each book or I'll read multiple books or we finish one and I start the other. There's never really a rhyme or reason. It's just kind of whatever mood I'm in. Hands on activities, which is during our real out time because I do not expect Emily to sit still the whole time I'm reading. So I give her things to do with her hands while I'm reading aloud that can be puzzles. It can be painting with water. It can be Perler beads, amazes, like seriously the list is endless. And then the last thing that I include are games because Emily loves games. Like that is literally her love language. And so that's typically the thing we do at the very, very end of our morning time to make sure that we've really kind of driven home that connection. And it's also a really good segue for us to go from our morning time to our table time, which is our school time. So that's what I include in our morning basket. Again, it doesn't mean that that's the right things to include. We've gone through phases where there's been other things. We've had devotions in there. We've had different poetry in there. We've had all kinds of different things in our morning time over the years. But those are the things that are staples and that never ever leave. Like they're always there no matter what. Now, in case you're looking for more morning time ideas and if you want more things to include in your morning time or you're getting started with morning time and you want ideas, I have a blog post with 50 fun and engaging resources to include during your morning time. So I'm going to link that in the description for you to check out. And then before I show you a glimpse into what our morning time looks like, I want to leave you with this. If you are starting morning time, like for the first time ever, you've never done it before. And you're looking around at blog posts or videos, it can be overwhelming because you might be thinking to yourself, I don't have the time or energy to add one more thing to my home school day. But first of all, while you're adding, you're really not adding because it's going to take less time than you think. And you're like for us, that 30 to 45 minutes that we spend in the morning makes the rest of our day go smoother. And because the rest of our day goes smoother, we're getting it done quicker. So I know it can be tempting to be like, there's no way I can fit something else into my day but I really still encourage you to try it because doing that may make the rest of your day go smoother or you may be able to fit things into your morning time that you now won't have to do in the rest of your day in a quicker way. So I still encourage you just to try it even if you're thinking I can't add another thing and to start small. I can be super overwhelming when you start looking like at one of my morning basket videos because we put so much in it. I did not start out putting that much into our morning basket. That's where we're at now because we've been doing morning basket for over five years. Like I think we're going on our sixth year of doing it but that's not what I started with. Seriously, you can start with just a read-alout. Like that can still be your morning time. You can be like, okay, we're gonna sit down, we're gonna read a devotion, we're gonna read a chapter of this book. Boom, morning time done. The kid doesn't have to be complicated. You can say, here's one thing for me which might be poetry because you really want your kids to do poetry and here's one thing for my kids which might be mad libs because that makes them crack up. There's two things to put in your morning basket and boom, you have a morning time. So I just really encourage you not to stress about the extra time that it may take or by thinking you have to do a ton during your morning time to make it effective because you don't. Okay, so now that we've got all of that out of the way, I am ready to share with you a glimpse into our morning time so you can kind of see what it looks like for us. All right. Emily, would you rather be called Aphrodite or Venus? I think I'm gonna go with Venus. You'd rather be called Venus? Yes. Okay. What about you, Kevin? Would you rather be called Aphrodite or Venus? I wouldn't go Aphrodite. Mom, what about you? I'm thinking Aphrodite. Venus sounds cool. Something gross. Poop. I knew you were gonna say that. Poop is gross. All right. Something wet. Slime. Pea. I knew she was gonna say that too. All right, Kevin will let you take this one. This type of food. Lasagna. Lasagna. Soon I come to a mountain, so I stomp up it. When I get to the top, I see a stinky man carrying a sharply cup. Excuse me, shorty, I say. But could I have a drink of that? The man looks happy and I say, I'm sorry, but I'm a cup bearer to the Titan King, Cronus. And this quickly drinks, and this quick drink is for him. I made it from poop and pee. Yum, I think, but then the cup bearer says that if I deliver to the cup to the king, he'll make me a lasagna smoothie. So I ran off to look for the king. I find Cronus driving on a car and give him the cup. Cronus takes a big sip and turns pink and starts gliding like mad. Suddenly he opens his mouth and a loud bang comes out. Cronus looks a bit silly, so I carve away as quickly as I can. After that, I think I'll pass on the cup bearer's lasagna smoothie. Yeah, I think I'd pass too. That sounds pretty gross. These welcome home speech wasn't enough to damper my spirits. Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, who's all for that? In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday. I moved back into cabin three, but it didn't feel so lonely anymore. I had my friends to train with during the day. And at night, I lay away, you can listen to the sea, knowing my father was out there. Maybe he wasn't quite sure about me yet. Maybe he hadn't even wanted me born, but he was watching and so far, he was proud of what I had done. Magic. All right, my magic is 65 for Cronus. 60. 10. Oh, Cronus beats Zeus and Jason. What's, choose Jason. Jason. Jason and the Argonauts. We haven't learned about that method yet, we will. All right, so now I get to pick. I am going to pick terror. Because my terror is 72. 30. 25. Wait, who, what are you? That's the gray sisters, isn't it? The fates? Yes, the fates. I hope that you enjoyed learning more about our morning time and our morning basket and how we do it and what we include. And now I would love to hear from you. Do you do a morning time in your home school? And if so, what are the staples during your morning time that are non-negotiables that you're doing every single day? Let me know down in the comments.