Fun and Engaging Resources for Your February Morning Basket
February may be short, but it’s packed with fun! Discover a variety of engaging resources to add to your February morning basket, perfect for enriching your homeschool routine all month long.
February can be a tough month for homeschool families. In many areas, winter is still in full force, making it difficult to get outside very often. The holidays are over, but there’s still several months of the school year to go. For a short month, February can seem to drag.
Don’t let the month keep you down! Add some fun activities to your February morning basket and start your homeschool day on a positive note.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link. Please see my full disclosure for further information.
What to Include in Your February Morning Basket
Much of our morning basket items stay the same each month. However, I do like to change it up a little just to keep things fresh and enticing. We’ve really been enjoying art and nature study activities this school year, so that’s what I like to change the most each month to keep us excited to start each school day.
Daily Morning Time Activities
Each morning, we start our homeschool day with our morning basket. We begin with a morning offering prayer and a decade of the Rosary. Afterwards, we move on to the following activities. My boys are in 4th and 6th grade, so many of these materials are upper elementary level, though many can be adapted to other grades. My preschooler will even do a few of the following activities with us.
February Read Aloud
Last month, I had planned to read Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray. However, I decided to read Mary Poppins to the boys instead.
I’m so glad we did! Mary Poppins is a fun read aloud! The chapters are long, so be prepared with read aloud activities. After we finished the book, we watched the movie and compared it to the book. We found out that Mary Poppins is the first in a series of books about her character by P.L. Travers, so we may continue with the series in future months.
So…all that to say that we will read Adam of the Road this month instead!
February Nature Study
Our nature study time has become a favorite in our morning basket! I’m so glad I moved nature study to the morning. We go off of a weekly or biweekly theme, usually following the Exploring Nature with Children curriculum.
I try to incorporate a nature walk, art and literature into our nature study each week. This month we will be studying winter birds, which I’ve been trying to get to since December. Hopefully it’ll happen this month! I’m going to continue with an owl study after that. Then I’ll finish the month with a study on evergreens and pine cones.
If coming up with your lessons is too much right now, consider joining No Sweat Nature Study Live lessons. Cindy from Our Journey Westward will lead your kids on amazing nature study classes twice a month. My kids love her classes!
Winter Birds Mini Unit Study
Our winter bird study is one that has been getting pushed back since it came up as a weekly theme in Exploring Nature with Children. But since it won’t be winter much longer, I must get to it this month!
I plan to do more of a hands-on study this month. We have read about birds quite a lot in the last couple of years, as I’m very fond of birds. So I’ll set out a few books, but mostly we’re going to be observing. I want the boys to put some of the observations in their nature journals. I also plan to show them how to create a variety of graphs after counting how many birds come to the feeders throughout the week.
Owls Mini Unit Study
We have never really discussed owls at all in our homeschool, so this owl nature study will be brand new. I have several books about owls to read, including some from a couple of my favorite authors of science topics. I’m also thinking of a fun activity to do with the book, Owl Moon.
Geography
I mentioned in my January morning basket post that our geography work I had planned for the year just wasn’t working out. So last month we started doing geography drill with European countries.
To do this, I printed a blank European map for each boy, along with a filled-in map and put them in page protectors. Each day they get a few minutes to write down the countries they remember with a dry erase marker. Then they use the filled-in map to check their work and find 3 more countries to label.
We are almost done with Europe. So for February, we’ll have to decide whether to move onto a new continent or choose a European country and label its cities and landmarks. I think we’re leaning towards Africa.
Saint of the Day
We are still using these Saint of the Day cards.
Vocabulary Word of the Day
We will continue using our Vocabulary Cartoons book.
Memory Work
Each day, the boys have 5 minutes for memory work. For this school year, they’ve been memorizing 20 popular Catholic prayers. They are just about done, but probably won’t finish before the month is out, so we’ll just continue with our current memory work.
Weekly Morning Time Activities
Along with the activities we include daily in our morning basket above, each day we also do one more activity that we get to once a week.
Life of Fred
Mondays are Life of Fred days in our homeschool morning basket. My boys absolutely love these books!
The books are about a 5-year-old college professor named Fred and his daily adventures. It’s a living book that fits well with the Charlotte Mason teaching method. Each chapter ends with a “Your turn to play” where the kids work out some math problems. We love using it as a math supplement to our homeschool math curriculum.
Art History
We have been enjoying Art History Kids so much! I am really blown away at how much information is included in each week’s lesson packet. My boys have absolutely loved these lessons. So much so that instead of just covering art history one day a week, we’ve been doing it almost daily for the past couple of months.
Chalk Pastel Lessons
We love finding chalk pastel lessons that go along with something we’re studying, or lessons that are fun for a particular month. Clubhouse members from You Are an Artist have access to an Art Lesson Calendar with daily lesson ideas perfect for each month. So in February, we’ll enjoy lessons on birds, presidents, groundhogs and Valentines.
Additional Theme Ideas for Your February Morning Basket
February may be the shortest month of the year, but it’s definitely not short on theme ideas for your February morning basket! Below are some ideas on topics to cover this month.
Groundhog Day
Animals in Winter
Winter/Snow
St. Valentine’s Day
Chocolate
President’s Day
Lent/Ash Wednesday
Black History Month
Chinese New Year
Leap Day/Leap Year
Preschool Morning Basket
I am not formally schooling my 3-year-old at this time. He will usually pray with us at the beginning of our morning basket, but then he’ll typically do his own thing. However, he does often join us for nature study and art.
So to keep him busy, I create a few sensory activities for him to complete each month. For February, I created Valentine-themed activities. He has a couple of sensory bins, as well as some Valentine-themed counting activities. He also has his own book basket of themed books that he can look through, plus toys and activities throughout our living areas that keep him busy while we finish our morning basket.
Including interesting books and activities in your February morning basket will keep your homeschool running smoothly. Your kids will love sharing the engaging lessons with you, and you’ll love starting your homeschool day with ease.
Morning Baskets: What They Are and Why You Need One
How to Create the Perfect Morning Basket
How to Ease Into a Morning Basket Routine
