Morning Basket Ideas for Toddlers

Although I was homeschooled through high school, I didn’t stumble upon the idea of “Morning Basket” until I was an adult, researching homeschool methods for myself. I instantly loved the idea!

A morning basket time provides unity for all ages of family members to learn, recite, and experience things together; it is also a quick way to expose children (and parents!) to Scripture, hymns, art, poetry, read-alouds, chatechism, and almost anything else that you wish to include.

As the parent of a toddler, I don’t have much experience with this yet, but I have done a structured morning basket time since before my oldest was two. I’m always switching things out of this time, but typically our “morning basket” lasts around 15 minutes and will always include Scripture memory/review, singing a hymn together, reading a page of a children’s devotional book, reading a poem, flashcards, and ending with a picture book.

Here are some of my favorite materials that I’ve used in our morning basket time!

Everything a Child Should Know About God by Kenneth N. Taylor

An older woman at my church passed this resource on to our family, and I have loved how it breaks down large theological concepts! Each page contains a few sentences explaining the idea of the day, and ends with a question or prompt. It’s advertised for ages 2-7; younger kids may not grasp everything, but it will provide a good starting point for conversations. Several of my friends also use this with their children and I have heard good feedback from them as well!

Tiny Hands Hymns

I picked this board book up at a conference a few years ago; it contains the first verse of eight well-known hymns. My children love the illustrations and quickly have memorized the songs so that we can sing them together. I saw that a Tiny Hands Hymns 2 has been published recently so I’m looking forward to adding that to my collection; there are also many other resources out there that help introduce children to historical hymns.

Tiny Hands Promises and Tiny Hands Prayers

Also in the Tiny Hands series are these board books that contain Scripture (or a paraphrase of Scripture). Sometimes I feel like these reminders are more for me as the parent; nevertheless, I enjoy sharing them verbally with my children. It’s a great way to close out our morning basket time together.

A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson

These poems are delightful and fun to read out loud; the edition that is illustrated by Tasha Tudor is absolutely gorgeous. I typically read aloud a poem a day. I’ve also used a few other children’s anthologies that contain some beautiful verses, but this is my favorite collection by far.

Tabitha Paige books

Our morning basket ALWAYS contains several Tabitha Paige books; a day doesn’t go by without my kids asking to read them! Wishy Washy is a fun, classic favorite. Our Little Adventures contain simple stories and Our Little Library is a collection of fun ways to introduce new words to littles; these two collections also have educational suggestions at the end to help children with identifying letters and colors, or can even be used as a conversation starter.

Scripture memory

I don’t use any special resource here, except the Word of God! I use notecards to handwrite the verses we are working on and save them for an easy review.

Flashcards

We use different kinds of flashcards depending on what we are working on; shapes, colors, numbers, letters, etc! My sister purchased the Good Grounds ABC flashcards for us, which are a visually pleasing collection of Bible-themed flashcards.

Fellow homeschool moms, what other resources do you include in your morning basket time or what would you recommend?