A Real Look at Our Homeschool Morning Basket Time | Homeschool Show & Tell Series

Hey everybody, welcome to the Law Doc Way. I'm Jessica. Today's video is going to be a homeschool show and tell. The homeschool show and tell is an open collaboration hosted by Abby from Rooted in Rest and myself. Our goal with this collaboration is just to show that there's not one right way to homeschool. So we bring homeschoolers together from around the world each and every month to share their take on a different topic. This month's topic is morning baskets. And I'm so excited about this one because morning baskets have been like an instrumental, staple, foundational part of our homeschool for years, like probably almost since the very beginning. They no longer happen in the morning for us per se, but some form of basket time has been absolutely instrumental, like I said, in our homeschool for at least the past five to six years. Like I don't know how we would have homeschooled without it. So I'm really excited for this topic. Now, I have already shared what is in our morning basket or basket for the most part for this year. So I'm going to link that video up here for you guys, but I decided it would be fun for y'all to basically do basket time with us. So that's what we're going to do is we're going to bring you along and you're going to do pretty close to a complete basket time with us. We have a handful of things that we do each and every day, like ones that are dated. And so we do like a few things you'll see. And then we loop through one or two different things after we do our daily stuff. And then we do read alouds. We are reading aloud a personal growth book. And then if time allows, we also do like our unit study read alouds at the end of our basket time. That just kind of depends on what our day looks like. Our basket time typically lasts anywhere from about 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Again, depending on how much time we have. And it's primarily me reading. Like I just sit there and read for a long period of time while Emily does something with her hands. We keep a basket nearby full of things that she can do. Coloring books, you know, ideas for building clay. We keep puzzles close by. These are all quiet things that she can do while I'm reading. And I personally find that it helps her focus even better when she's doing something with her hands while I'm reading aloud. So it's perfect. I would also say that our basket time accounts for probably about 50% of the learning that happens in our homeschool. That sounds like a lot, but we are covering like logic, manners, personal growth. We talk about history. We talk about science. We do, you know, animals, which is also science. And then, like I said, almost all of our unit study reading is happening during that time too. Today is October 13th. So we are going to focus on what you have. We're going to be thankful for what you have. You'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never ever have enough. I like that one. What do you think that means? Like can you give me an example? It's like if you focus on the things you don't have, you'll miss out on the things you do have. That's a very good point. So like if you're focusing on maybe like the video games that you don't own, you would forget about the ones you do have. Exactly. And how fun those can be. Very good observation. On this day in history, in 1792, the cornerstone is laid for a presidential residence in America's capital city of Washington, D.C. Later in 1800, President John Adams became the first president to live in the home, which was dubbed the White House. Yeah. Because of its white, gray stone exterior. I'm sure that was so hard to come up with. Yeah. So creative, right? Very creative. All right. Fact number one, the African bush elephant is the largest animal on land. Adult males reach 10 foot tall and weigh up to 13,000 pounds. The largest bird on earth is the? Ostrich. Very good. It can get up to nine foot tall. The largest amphibian on earth is the Chinese giant salamander. How large do you think this thing can grow? Scary large. Six foot. That would mean that he is longer than your daddy is tall. I'm telling you, that is scary. That's creepy. Scary long. Yeah. I would not want to meet one of those in real life. No, thank you. You can keep your salamanders, China. Yeah. The blue whale is the largest animal ever to have lived. At 400,000 pounds, it weighs more than 30 adult African elephants. It's a very large whale. Yeah. And the whale shark is the largest fish in the ocean, reaching an average of 40 foot long. We are talking about the polyphmius moth today. It is the largest silk moth and it only eats when it's a caterpillar. Oh, so kind of like the luna moth. I wonder if all moths are like that. We need to look that up. Okay. It emerges from its cocoon in daylight, so its wings strengthen in the sun, but then it becomes nocturnal and lives less than a week. The large spots in the middle of its hind wings imitate eyes, which puts off predators. It's an invertebrate. Its wingspan can be up to six inches. It's an herbivore eating leaves, buds, and shrubs, and it lives in North America. Its status is least concerned. Today, we're going to do manners and our manner is be inclusive. When walking up to a group of people, acknowledge everyone there, not just one person. Don't just insert yourself and block others or pull one or two people away from the group. If you don't know everyone, introduce yourself. You want to make others feel welcome. Only focusing on one or two people in a group does the opposite of that. Remember what is most comfortable for you can sometimes make others feel excluded. Only focusing on one or two people you know or like can alienate the rest of the group or interrupt a conversation. You can still create space for yourself by introducing yourself to the entire group. If you really only know one or two people or you only want to talk with one person, say hi quickly and ask them to come find you when they're finished with their current conversation. Are we ready to talk about how teens win? Yes. Chapter 17 is turns out it does in fact take a village. I have a prediction. 100 years from now, there won't be a single scientific study that says isolation is good for teenagers. Doctors won't write articles titled the health benefits of being alone in your room without friends for an entire year. Teachers won't suggest eating lunch in your car by yourself as a way to improve high school. Parents won't propose that you spend more time looking at your phone and less time laughing with friends at the neighborhood pool. None of that will happen. How can I be so confident about something so far into the future? Because we're already talking about how destructive loneliness is, especially for our generation. For the first time ever, the Surgeon General of the United States, think of them as the head doctor for the country, has laid out a framework to deal with social situations and social connections. He warned given the significant health consequences of loneliness and isolation that we must prioritize building social connection the same way we have prioritized health issues such as tobacco, obesity, and substance use disorders. If community is the fuel that moves you the most, let's simplify the whole situation. Shove loneliness into a locker and build the types of relationships that will help most. Community comes in a four-pack. How many relationships do you need to have fun, a fun, fantastic life? I wish there was an exact answer, but there's not. I can't say that with 5.7 friends on average during high school, you're guaranteed to have the best spring break ever. Or if you have 4.7 adults in your life who care about your future, your senior year will be a lot easier. Because guess what? Community doesn't work that way. Maybe your best moments list was full of relationships because you love helping teach art to younger students at an after-school program, which your best moments list did in fact include quite a bit of relationships. Maybe you're an introvert, but that doesn't mean that you like to be lonely, which also is you. You're an introvert, but you still like community and relationships and friends. I just like a smaller dosage and when I feel like it. Yeah. It means that you would rather have one best friend probably instead of 10 casual friends. Yes. Maybe being on the soccer team and having 22 friends united around a singular goal is what fills you up most. Yeah, you're definitely the one best friend. Closer-knit, smaller groups of people is your jam. You can make deeper connections and they mean more. Yeah, that's your jam for sure. Not that casual friends don't mean more, but your goal is making the deeper connections. That's what means more to you anyway. Every teenager is different when it comes to community, but what's the same for all of us is that community tends to come up in four varieties. All of your relationships will fit into one of these four buckets. Family, kids, friends, and trusted adults. How I define each family is immediate and extended. Kids is anyone who might look up to you. Friends are people who overlap at at least one game and trusted adults are older people that you look up to. Okay, so now let's think about that for a minute. Can we think of one person in each category? So family, immediate and extended. You and daddy. Perfect. Kids, anyone who looks up to you. I'm not sure. I would say at the top of my head, Skylee and Grayson, your cousins. All right, friends, people who overlap in at least one game. Bren, Abby, Nanny. Okay, and trusted adults, older people you look up to. Mr. John and Sir Jeff. Okay. Definitely Mr. John. Okay. I really look up to him. So that works very well because they don't fall into another category. They're adults you look up to. Perfect. So my idea for the drum is I'm gonna do, so there's red here, there's blue here, and in the middle, since red and blue make purple, it's gonna be purple. So you're using color science for your coloring book? Yes. See, my ghost is, he's excited. He's a drummer that likes science and stuff. You know, he's an all-around drummer. Okay, I like it. I like it. All right, are you ready to do some of our unit study reading? Yes, ma'am. Okay. When would I not? I know, you love that. So let's dive into ancient Egypt. We will read about King Tut and our Egyptian tales and Ra. And then our Cain. And Cain Chronicles. So all of the ancient Egypt, which is your favorite. And that's the order you want to do it in? Yes, ma'am. Okay. Ancient robbers were not the only ones who looted tombs in Egypt. In the 1800s, people from many different countries and Europe began traveling to Egypt. The ancient kingdom was long gone. The old beliefs had all disappeared. The squiggly pictures, picture writing, which was hieroglyphs, was a mystery to everyone. But tourists visited the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx. They took trips down the Nile. They saw the ruins of old temples and giant statues. They wanted to bring back souvenirs. Sometimes what they brought back was a whole mummy. If you go to ancient Egypt, don't bring home a whole mummy. No, I want to bring back a cat mummy. That's not a whole mummy. That's a small mummy. That's so creepy. What's even creepier is when people will literally have parties where they put the mummies on a table and they literally unwrap it and they literally watch the mummies decay for fun. Why? It's a fancy thing to do back then. I don't know. That's creepy. Yeah, that really is creepy. Today's tale from ancient Egypt is an Egyptian myth, the War of the Gods. The gods squabbled and bickered over who was the rightful king after Osiris. His son Horus or his murderous brother Set. Horus must be king, shouted Shu and Thoth. If you do not give Horus the throne, I will tear down the sky itself, warned the hunter goddess Neith. Ra spat, Horus is too weak, Set will be king. One baboon god insulted Ra so rudely that he collapsed onto his back in grief. The other gods kept changing their minds, supporting Set after he made a threatening speech and supporting Horus after Isis made a wise speech. One day, Horus' mother Isis shapeshifted into a human woman to trick Set. My husband was a farmer, she told him, but he died and my son gained all of his cows. Now another man has threatened to hurt him and steal his cows. Please, will you defend my son? Set replied, of course, your husband's things belong to his child. Isis transformed back into her true form. Aha, she exclaimed, by your own words, Horus should get his father's throne. Ra shook his head at Set for being so easily fooled. Ra supported Set for his strength, so a contest was launched to decide who was stronger. The two gods had to race boats made of stone. Horus cleverly made a boat of wood and painted it to look like stone, while Set, not always the brightest god, carved a boat from a mountain. When his rocky boat- Technically, Seth did do the challenge correctly. Technically, yes. When his rocky boat immediately sank in the race, he furiously transformed into a giant hippopotamus. To attack Horus, he fought him off with a spear. The other gods shouted, you can't use a spear in a race. Horus was exasperated. This is ridiculous. I keep proving myself fairly, but Set keeps fighting unfairly. He just attacked me as a giant hippo. And many gods agreed, so they asked Osiris in the underworld what he thought. There are many demons down here, he said. If you don't make my son king, I will release them all on you. And the threat worked, and Horus became king. Well, that's one way to get your son the throne. Yeah. Do you remember what was happening when we last read? Um, oh yeah, Ra was replaced. Yeah. And now Sabu is with- they're competing now. Yes, that is correct. So basically, they took another cat back wearing Ra's collar, and Mew was being friendly to Sabu because they need Sabu's help, but Ra's not happy about it. It was all I could do to get out of there without starting a cat fight, but Pharaoh's cat knows how to behave with dignity. With Kipri perched on my head, I padded my way down the narrow main street of Setmat. When I was sure we were out of Sabu's sight, I came to a halt. Did you hear that? I fumed to Kipri. Sabu's turned this into a contest. He thinks he's a better detective than I am. That's not necessarily a bad thing, Kipri said, if it means he worked hard. Great detective, my paw. Why, he can't handle being a sidekick. I was still fuming. I'll show him. I'll crack this case before the vizier comes back for me with time to spare. We'll crack it, Kipri said. Now, where do we start? With Neferhotep? No, I didn't even have to think twice. We'll get to him later, but we'll start at the top. What better place could there be for Pharaoh's cat? We are going to interview the highest ranking animal in Setmat. You mean Sabu, Kipri said doubtfully. Of course not, I scowled. Sabu can brag all he wants to, but we know who the real top animal is. Who? Wasn't it obvious? Well, it's the scribe who's head of the village. So the top animal is his favorite pet. He had the boy Kinema paint her portrait. Remember what's her name? Minwe, Kipri said. Yes, that's the one. What sort of animal do you think she is, Kipri wondered. Something classy, no doubt. With a name like that, the original Minwe had a great lady in the royal court. I'm guessing she's a cat of fine lineage, or perhaps a monkey or a falcon. Kipri looked down the street of tightly packed houses. And where do you think she lives? Oh, that's easy. We'll look for the biggest place in the village. Only the best will do for the scribe. Kipri thought this over, so he'll have the best snacks too. Kipri is quite clever sometimes. Another reason to always start at the top, my friend. Okay, so before we get there, what kind of animal do you think it's going to be? I'm not sure. Wasn't it like we saw a picture of like a pig or a chicken? I don't know, but I feel like this is going to be another one like at in the first one. Like it's going to be an animal that either doesn't like beetles or doesn't like cats. I think it's going to be an animal that's fancy. Or maybe the opposite of fancy. Maybe Ra is going to be like, that is who is the top animal? Well, technically he is a scribe, so I know scribes aren't really kings or anything. Oh wow, we're almost done. I'm sad. Yeah, because this is another book, so that's all we actually have left. But the first one, we still have two more to read. Two. So today we'll be reading from Carter's perspective, and the two chapters we're reading are Leroy Gets His Revenge. Oh yay, Leroy. And the house is in the house. Yeah, that makes no sense to me, but. I think it's the house of life is in the house. But how is it in the house? Well, you know how people are like when they come to a, well, actually you might not know this, but people will like come to a party and they'll be like, for example, if I came in the door and I thought I was, they'd be like, Jessica is in the house. But what if you're not in a house? It really doesn't matter. It's just like a saying. Okay. It's kind of like when people are like, raise the roof, and you can even do that outside if there's no roof. How can you raise a roof if there's no roof? Just an imaginary roof? Just because it's like the dance. You're raising the roof, whether there's a roof there or not. Okay. I'm in the house. Whether you're in the house or not, like it kind of means more like a hypothetical house. Well, no, it's more like I've arrived. I'm here. So like in this instance, I'm going to assume the house is in the house is going to be like the people from the house of life have arrived on the scene. Okay. Well, that was a little late there, but. Well, yeah, but it's a saying. It would be figurative language, which is a struggle for you, Mrs. Literal. But anyway, that's what I'm going to assume it means. Okay. You're with it now? Yes. Okay. Maybe I'm a slow learner. Okay. Because it wasn't until that moment facing the God set in the middle of his throne room in the heart of an evil pyramid with an army of demons outside and the world about to explode that I thought coming here was a really bad idea. You just now? Okay. You're as bad as the house in the house. He said, maybe I'm a slow learner. I think you're at snail's pace, mister. Yeah. Set rose from the throne. He was red skin and muscular with fiery armor and a black iron staff. His head shifted from the bestial to human. One moment, he was the hungry stare. One moment, he had the hungry stare of the slavering jaws of my old friend, Leroy, the monster from the DC airport. The next, he had sandy hair and a handsome but harsh face with intelligent eyes that sparkled with humor and a cruel, crooked joke. He kicked our uncle out of the way and Amos groaned, which at least meant he was in fact alive. I was clenching my sword so tight that the blade trembled. Zia was right. I said, you possessed Amos. Set spread his trying to look modest. Well, you know, it wasn't a full possession. Gods can exist in many places at once. Carter, Horace could tell you that if he was being honest with you, I'm sure Horace has been looking for a nice war monument to occupy or a military academic or a military academy somewhere. Anything but the scrawny little form of yours. Most of my being has now transformed into this magnificent structure. He swept his arm proudly around the throne room, but a sliver of my soul was quite enough to control Amos' cane. He held out his pinky and a wisp of red smoke snaked towards Amos, sinking into his clothes. Amos arched his back like he'd been hit by lightning. Stop it, I yelled. I ran towards Amos, but the red mist had already dissipated. Our uncle's body went slack. Set dropped his hand as if bored with the attack. Not much left, I'm afraid. Amos fought well. He was very entertaining, demanding much more of my energy than I had anticipated. That chaos magic, that was his idea. He tried his best to warn you, to make it obvious I was controlling him. The funny thing is, I forced him to use his own magic reserves to pull off those spells. He almost burned out his soul trying to send you those warning flares. Turn you into a storm, please. Who does that anymore? You're a beast, Sadie shouted. Set gasped in mock surprise. Really? Me? Then he roared with laughter as Sadie tried to drag Amos out of harm's way. Amos was in London that night, I said, hoping to keep his attention on me. He must have followed us to the British Museum, and you've been controlling him ever since. Des was never your host. Oh, that commoner? Please, Set sneered. We always prefer the blood of the pharaohs, as I'm sure you've heard. But I did love fooling you. I thought the bonjour was an especially nice touch. You knew my ba was there watching. You forced Amos to sabotage his own house so your monsters could get in. You made him walk into the ambush. Why didn't you just have him kidnap us? Set spread his hands. As I said, Amos put up a good fight. There were certain things I could not make him do without destroying him completely, and I didn't want to ruin my new plaything quite so soon. Anger burned inside me. Amos's odd behavior finally made sense. Yes, he had been The conflict that I had felt in him had been his attempts to warn us. He'd almost destroyed himself trying to save us, and Set had thrown him aside like a broken toy. Give me control, Horace urged. We will avenge him. Nope, I've got this, I said. No, Horace said. You must let me. You are not ready. Set laughed as if he could sense the struggle within me. Oh, poor Horace, your host needs training wheels. You seriously expect to challenge me with that? For the first time, Horace and I had the same feeling at exactly the same moment. Rage. Without thinking, we both raised our hand, extending our energy towards Set. A glowing fist slammed into him, and the red god flew backwards with such force he cracked a column which tumbled on top of him. We hope you enjoyed doing Basket Time with us today. That is pretty close to like real-time what it looks like. You didn't spend the entire time with us, but it lasted about 50 minutes, so you got a pretty good look at what our Basket Time looks like on a daily basis. If you have any questions, leave them down in the comments because I would be happy to answer them.