First, I want to acknowledge that I purchased a guide from Amy Gannett titled, “How to use a Morning Basket for Toddler Discipleship” for $5. If you are at all interested in starting a morning basket or discipleship routine with your child, please buy her guide. To hear her words of wisdom and insight about it is worth it. Amy talks about how their is no right way to incorporate discipleship to your routine and these are not the only resources that can be used!
Buy her guide here
Before you start
Pick a time during the day for your morning basket. We do our basket Monday-Friday. Friday is Noah’s day off so it enables him to be part of it and see what they are learning as well. Every morning after breakfast (usually still in pajamas), we start our morning basket routine. After we eat I will say, “Time to get your morning basket out. Please set out the mat”. It really doesn’t matter what time of day you do it, but I think the key is consistency.
Lylah sits on the mat and she takes all of our discipleship tools and musical instruments out and we put it in front of us. She anticipates it after breakfast now and will often ask to do it.
In our basket
(I will link everything at the end)
Gathre mat (you can use a blanket!)
Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones
The ABCs of God’s Attributes by Tiny Theologians
Beginner Creature Character Cards by September and Co.
YouTube playlist. This is my playlist of around 35 songs.
Musical instruments: (tambourine & guitar)
Our routine
Read one story (1-2 pages) from Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones and if the story is longer, I break it up into 2 days. I will refresh her memory if we split it up and we talk about what part of the Bible the story is from. I also like to remind of things like, this story actually happened, it isn’t make believe.
The ABCs of God’s Attributes
Next, we sing the abcs as a transition song and to help her learn them. We do one card from The ABCs of God’s Attributes by Tiny Theologians each day. I have Lylah take our letter out (move the one you used to the back) and I ask her what letter it is, we go over the sound and talk about the colors on the card. I often do repeat after me or fill in the black for these concepts. Once we finish the abc cards, we start them over again. We are on our third rotation of using the cards. Tiny Theologians has so many great resources for all ages. I just bought another set from them.
Beginner Creature Character Cards
We do one character card a day. Again, I let Lylah touch all of our resources so I have her take the card out and we talk about the animal on the card and then the word. Lylah is 2 1/2 so I often simplify concepts too. For example, our card today was “obedience” and we will also talk about the word “obey”. This is also helpful to refer to throughout the day with discipline.
On the back of the card it defines the character word and we do fill in the blank. I will read it first by saying, “Obedience is doing what I’m asked with a good attitude” and then I will say it again and have her fill in the blank. Doing what I’m asked with a good __. She will say, “attitude!”
We then do repeat after me “I can” statements and read the Bible verse. In the future, I want to implement memorizing these verses too
Prayer
I talk about prayer being a time that we talk to Jesus and we can go to Him anytime, any place and anywhere. We pray for our day, dad at work and often say a prayer relating to the cards or something we are thankful for.
Worship
After, we do 4 songs from the YouTube playlist I created. Most of the songs are from Slugs and Bugs which is a channel dedicated to singing songs straight from scripture to aide in memorization. I go through the playlist doing the same 4 songs each week and then pick 4 new ones the next week. When we finish the playlist, I start it again.
Then we clean up the mat together and put the basket away. Whatever way you choose to do discipleship will be great for your child. I pray that seeing one discipleship routine will help you create a routine that works for you!
