Teatime today. We all toasted to warmer weather. My pantry is rather bare so we had just a couple of cookies each. And I didn’t really like the book of poems that I’d gotten at the library. But we still enjoyed the time together and my daughter asked me for a few French words for the English words in a poem she wanted to read. I do enjoy this ritual.
~Ann
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My family has been trying to include Poetry Teatime in our week. We are seeing wonderful benefits to it! I have a large family with eight children ranging in age from 12 years down to 6 months old. I wondered how I could make poetry work for such a span of interests and understanding. After diving into I’m happy to report the water’s warm and cozy.
We set the stage for poetry with a tablecloth, candles, and a treat of some sort. On this day it was pumpkin muffins. I brought to the table:
While the children ate I read poems, beginning with Dickenson while all the mouths were full and little ones would listen. Then we read a few poems from the other, illustrated books. Some were funny, others fit the snow and cold outside our door.
Poetry finished, we dived back into Narnia and chapter fourteen, The Beginning of the End of the World. My children marveled over the stars turned human, giggled at Reepicheep’s squeaky voiced courage, and debated if they would have gone on with Caspian to the end of the world or not.
Later that afternoon a few children stole away with the poetry books to read in their beds. Their younger siblings snuggled down next to them. That is the most telling moment of all. Is poetry teatime for all ages? Yes.
Thank you for Brave Writer’s encouragement!
Tristan
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Image by Brave Writer mom, Lori D
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I love this picture. It completely captures each of their personalities! And low and behold, the one who is usually checked out during any poetry reading looks chipper.
My kids respond very positively to any time we have food on the table and candles lit. So for our tea time I just grabbed what was on hand – mint tea with xyla, jello, fruit leathers, strawberries, oranges, and gluten-free crackers with raw peanut butter and raspberry jelly. Since we have had to switch to gluten-free products I have not found many easy-to-make and tasty baked goods but they were troopers and enjoyed the spread.
This particular poetry time we were reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s “My Shadow”. My kids really like when we act out what we have been reading. The poem also makes more sense when we act and put expression into the reading. That also helps me understand since I have not had much exposure to poetry. My middle daughter, our performer, would also like to learn our “parts” to the poem so we can act it out for our family and friends.
I have to admit that the beginning of our year was a little stale and boring. I fell into a pattern of a schedule instead of routine. I KNOW that my kids like interactive activities and our read-aloud times. But because the curriculum guidebook told us to read certain books and to do certain activities on certain days I tried to stick with that but felt bad about my or the kids’ performance based on that standard. How silly. After looking over your website, listening to your podcasts, reading your blog, ordering and reading through Writer’s Jungle, Jot it Down, Partnership Writing, The Arrow (can you tell I’m into immersion?) and implementing those liberating changes to our days we are all so much happier!!!! What do you know!!!! School can be fun! Hahaha! I just laugh at myself. And fortunately my kids are laughing again too!
Kim
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Teatime Thursdays have become a regular part of our homeschool in the past several months. My children are young, seven, five, and three, but the value that I’m seeing by something so simple as having regular tea and reading poems and sort stories together is priceless.
Allie, my oldest, has never been a storyteller or enjoyed reading out loud. She has been reading far above her age for as long as I can remember, but has always been a little self conscious reading out loud since she mispronounces so many words. It’s hard to encounter many words and know what they mean, but have no idea how they are pronounced because you have only read but never heard them. The funny and fairly simple poetry of Shel Silverstein have been such an encouragement to her to read out loud. She loves getting to the punchline of some of the poems and watching her brother laugh.
My five year old has always been a pretty creative little guy, but he has spent a lot of time avoiding read alouds. His little body is so full of energy that he can’t sit still, not that he is really expected to, and his brain is always filled with ways to expand on a story or make it his own. Tea and poetry has been fun for him because he sits there quietly eating and drinking his tea while listening to poems.
Perhaps one of the most unexpected things about incorporating teatime into our lives is how it would encourage my freshly minted three year old. Grady has always been quiet, and mellow, and very independent. He does his own thing and has no concept that he isn’t a forty year old man. When he started to bring his own books to tea and poetry to read to us my heart soared. Of course he isn’t reading yet, but he brings books to the table and “reads” them to us. He has brought several Thomas the Tank Engine books or his favorite book “The Big Hungry Bear and the Red Ripe Strawberry” and sits there with his earl gray tea reading us his version of the story. I’ve been writing down his stories in a notebook and he knows it is his very own writing notebook. In addition to the stories that he writes that I’ve recorded, he has scribbled several of his own stories. Yes, they are literally just scribbles at this point, but he will pick up his notebook at dinnertime and read those scribbles to daddy. One of the things Julie had said in a podcast was how recording those stories taught kids that their words were valuable and important (I’m paraphrasing of course.) My three year old already knows that his words in his own notebook are important and worthy of sharing with someone.
And for me, well I love watching my kids grow in a love of good poetry and confidence reading out loud and telling their own stories. And brownies, I love getting to eat more brownies.
Erin
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