My kids are 9,7,5. We just started using a morning basket a few weeks ago, in part because of some of the threads and posts you mentioned. We were doing all of our school immediately after lunch, when the various preschoolers in my dayhome were napping. It was getting to feel like we were rushing through, just ‘getting it done’, though, so I wanted to move some things to the morning. We only have one baby, now, and my oldest is more indeoendent, so we want to move everything to the mornings eventually.
One reason the basket idea works is that most of our school materials are in the basement family room. The basket has everthing we want to do before we move downstairs. My kids wake at different times and take varying lengths of time to get moving in the morning. With the morning materials all ready to go, I can just call everyone together when I’m ready (baby fed, diapers all clean, etc.) Dressed or breakfasted or not, everyone stops and comes to participate. Then they can go back to the morning routine, finishing chores, instrument practice, and personal scripture time.
We do: prayer/hymn, gospel study, Spanish song and sequences, family nature observation calendar (they tell me something they noticed in the past day), Scripture box, Science reading, and if their attention is still there, a fun family read aloud. (Otherwise we move the read aloud to lunch time.) We also rotate through LDTR for Children, art, picture study, and composer study, although the art project usually waits until after the rest of the morning routine is done.
Joanne