Poetry Teatime: Indian Spiced Tea
Dear Julie,
We do Thursday teatimes as Tuesday is a busy day for us but I figure you’ll let me get away with that!
I came across your blog a few months ago and loved all your ideas to inspire kids to write and enjoy literature – we especially love the teatime idea and it is a firm favourite in our household! My elder daughter and I are currently on the kidswrite basic course which started this week.
The first picture captures our very first tea and as you can see the hot chocolate, Indian spiced tea and freshly baked cupcakes worked their magic and we had a blast! We read a few poems (my girls like the funny ones from Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein at the moment) and we continued with our read aloud story which is currently Eva Ibbotson’s “Secret Of Platform 13” which the girls are loving. My little boy (just turned 2) likes the hot chocolate and cake and even sits patiently through our readings for most part! I’m thinking of including some fun nursery rhymes for our next tea so as to include him in the whole experience.
The girls really look forward to it. We all have our roles – I prepare the food (although sometimes they help me with the baking beforehand) and drinks, My middle daughter lays the tablecloth and gets the centrepiece to decorate the table and my eldest sets the plates, cutlery and napkins (we use real cloth ones!). The youngest usually sits in his high chairs and bangs on the plates calling for cake and hot chocolate – it is very sweet. He has now learnt to wait for everything to be laid and for us to sit down before he touches the food. Then we say grace and as we all dig into the treats – we take turns to read poems we’ve chosen. Finally, I read the chosen story for the rest of the time while the kids polish off the food.
Our subsequent teatimes have been joined by my mother and even the neighbours kids. We are having so much fun and it is a wonderful family tradition to establish. THANKS!
Chi-ann Rajah
