Poetry Teatime: A collective “ahhhh”
The Original Poetry Teatime Guide
Poetry Teatimes offer you and your children a break from the fast-paced demands of homeschooling, parenting, and household running. Everyone sighs a collective “ahhhh” as they settle into their chairs, tea cups or mugs in hand, poetry books scattered across the table.
Plus muffin and scone recipes!
Some fresh advice for your teatimes!
Poetry teaches us the beauty and potential of the English language. The innovative use of language—of diction (word choice), metaphor and simile, other figures of speech, punctuation and capitalization—encourages our fledgling writers to take a chance with language.
We share poetry titles on our Poetry Teatime Pinterest board. Suggested books often come from the featured teatimes of Brave Writer families. Here are the poetry books we shared in 2014.
Features poetry books our family has enjoyed during our teatimes. Also, check out the recommendations from readers in the comments!
“A poem will live or die depending on how it is read.” ~Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate
Over and over, they had to read the poems aloud and remember all the times we’ve read them before. At one point, I had to explain why other people didn’t read poetry the way we did: “It’s because a lot of people are intimidated by poetry. They don’t know that you can begin with rhymes and jokes, kids poems and limericks. If they started there, they’d ease into the adult stuff without noticing…like you have!”
Don’t fall victim to “Fantasy Teatime Syndrome.”
What If Your Kids Don’t Like Teatime?
The idea here is to keep experimenting with new venues, new options, trusting the overall thrust of your time with your children to be the good that they need. Remember how critical their own input is to a successful home education.
Sometimes Mom Needs a Teatime Just for Her
Find a private moment to sip, to observe, to take in a little written inspiration, to pause and enjoy the flavor of the hot brew on a cold day.
Then there are the many awesome Brave Writer families who have shared their teatimes with us.
And don’t forget our Poetry Teatime Pinterest board. It’s filled with ideas!
Enjoy!
P.S. Thinking of poetry, our Playing with Poetry online workshop is the most fun you can have with your kids while working on writing. Taught by our own Susanne Barrett (MA in poetry), your family will not just learn to appreciate poetic forms, but will have the satisfying pleasure of writing them!
Also, Brave Writer’s Arrow Poetry Guide is a helpful tool! Four weeks’ worth of poetry lessons that use popular poems for children.
Still life image by cbransto (cc cropped, text added)
