A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Hi Julie,

I have decided to send you a picture of the ‘aftermath’ of tea time Tuesday! We were in the midst of kitchen tiling and threw together an impromptu tea time, complete with a crepe flower centerpiece compliments of my 7 year old daughter.

The tea was bubblegum kids fruit tea, the cookies – oatmeal raisin, the napkins – Bounty, the poetry – Walt Whitman, Robert Louis Stevenson and many more including my poetry journal from when I was a teenager.

After the hot tea and warm cookies were enjoyed, pencils could be heard scratching away composing original poetry from everyone including my 13 year old son and also my husband.

It was definitely our most ‘dressed down’ tea time Tuesday but a much needed and enjoyed break in a busy day!

Blessings on your day,
Elke

Having a poetry tea party is our all-time favourite way to enjoy our tea in the afternoon. We bake together, set the table prettily and make some space for ourselves. We choose favourite poems to share, and we read poetry to each other while enjoying our tea and afternoon snack.

It’s a truly wonderful way to inspire your children to enjoy poetry – or to share poetry with friends that might otherwise remain unshared. In our modern world, we don’t often take the time to read to one another, to share our thoughts in a quiet and genteel way…

We have a deck at the front of our house, and during the summer, we put a carpet out there and screen ourselves off from the world with cloths or with a folding screen. It’s lovely and cool out there until the late afternoon when the sun comes round, and we spend most of our early day out there, studying and playing.

Before we decorate it, it’s really quite bleak and it just shows what you can do with a few cushions and some sarongs! It doesn’t take much to put up and take down for so much pleasure.

Here we are, at a summer poetry tea party sharing our poetry, peach scones and green tea. I can’t believe how much my children have grown since this picture!

At the time of this picture, my children were quite young (9 and 13). In the picture, I see I am reading TS Elliott’s book, Old Possum’s Book of Cats. It’s a lovely whimsical book of poems that was the basis for the hit musical, Cats, back in the 1980s.

We don’t always read poetry. Sometimes we read out loud the bedtime story book that just can’t wait!

Of course, for a poetry tea party, you can choose any different cakes and pastries to share with tea. The emphasis is on the poetry rather than the food.

However, we love to make it special. There’s something intimate and very beautiful about making the space to read to one another whilst sharing different goodies for afternoon tea. It’s become a tradition – one that I hope my children will remember fondly.

~Rebecca

Read more about Rebecca’s teatime on her lovely All About Afternoon Tea Blog (where she shares yummy teatime recipes and more!).

April is also National Poetry Month! Poetry Teatime is a wonderful way to celebrate. And here are 30 more ways from Poets.org.

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Visit our Poetry Teatime website!

My 89-year-old grandmother traveled from Minnesota to Washington to stay with my parents for the last month. Today she and my mom came over to teach Claire (6), Colin (4), and me how to make her famous caramel rolls. Four generations came together to teach/learn how to make these beauties. When we pulled them fresh from the oven, we brewed a pot of tea and shared them over poetry.

Great-grandma didn’t want to read any poetry, but she got a kick when one of the kids chose one she knew and she giggled at the silly poems my daughter read beautifully.

The kids loved hearing their grandparents read some of their favorites too. Pops read “High Flight” and “The Owl and the Pussycat,” among others.

We love our poetry tea times, but this one was extra special! Thank you for the inspiration!

Jennifer

We had papaya at teatime this week to tie in with our current Arrow study of Inside Out and Back Again.

One of the things I appreciate most about our Brave Writer lifestyle is having a framework for our other studies. It is easy to call everyone to the table for teatime – they love the food and poetry reading and now that we’ve gathered here, extending the time a little longer with candles and copywork does not take a lot more effort.

Likewise, on Mondays. we have popcorn for lunch while watching our weekly movie. This helps us get rolling with our other work Monday mornings so that we’re finished those things by noon.

Having a daily highlight (movie, teatime, board game, nature hike) means I always have a good answer to the “What are we doing tomorrow?” question and creates momentum to keep going with our other tasks.

Thanks Julie for enriching not only our homeschool but our daily lives as we enjoy being together.

Krista and the kiddlings

My friend, Sarah, and I have Poetry Tea Time together with all of our boys (plus her one baby girl- not pictured). The kids are all really little (7, 6, 4, 4, 2, 1, 9 months). It can be so crazy sometimes but somehow we manage to get most of them sitting at the table all at once (by the time I took this picture the two year old had already finished his cookie and bolted).

The 7 year old reads a poem or recites The Swing or Time to Rise, my friend or I read or recite a poem, the 6 year old pretty much always recites How Doth, the four year olds and one and two year old gobble up their cookies and chug their vanilla cinnamon tea, and they are off with an explosion of little boy energy. Then my friend and I drink our (now cold) tea and chat. It’s lovely and chaotic.

Christine

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Visit our Poetry Teatime website!