Blue Poetry Tea is by Amy of Busy Boys Brigade!
We’re conducting a “just for fun” Poetry Teatime challenge on Instagram!
Pick a color, use it as the theme for your teatime, post a photo and tag @poetryteatime (use the hashtag #PoetryTeatime + the color)!
You can also use the photo to enter our Poetry Teatime Contest to be eligible to win
Help us create a rainbow of teatimes to share.
My name is Heidi, and I have four young children, ages 6, 5, 3, and 1. This is our second weekly teatime, and we are so excited to continue this new tradition. My girls were so excited to share a teatime with Grandma while we were on vacation, and our one year old son wasn’t about to be left out!
Today we got our own teapot, sugar bowl, and cream pitcher, and we’re all eagerly awaiting Friday teatime.
Thanks for encouraging this! Poetry is a subject that I am weak in, and I’m excited to have such a fun way to grow in it!!
We had our second poetry teatime recently after everyone enjoyed the first one so much.
After we’d each chosen a poem (I read for my boys), I grabbed ‘Love That Dog’ as a read aloud, having seen it on the Arrow reading list for this year. It turned out to be poetry themed and just perfect – we finished the whole thing and recognised several of the poems referenced.
My eldest daughter (9) then looked up William Blake’s ‘Tyger Tyger’ to fill in the missing verses after remembering we had it in one of our books.
The next day at lunchtime she started reciting Blake to herself from memory. We’ll definitely be making this a regular feature!
Katie
Welcome to our first Poetry Teatime Podcast!
I was honored to interview Marilyn Singer, award-winning poet and author. Marilyn and I met for the interview long distance—she, in her home in Brooklyn, and me, Julie, in a library in Cincinnati.
Unfortunately the library failed us, a bit. The Internet connection was variable throughout and you will notice that in the recording. Stay with it, though. The content is fabulous (delightful) and the sound improves. You will hear the cooing of her doves in the background at times, too. Enjoy!
Also, be sure to explore Marilyn’s wonderful books of poetry, including Mirror Mirror and its sequel Follow Follow! (affiliate links)
Shared on Facebook last night:
As I crawl into bed exhausted tonight, all of you will be on my mind. Today was an extraordinary day for me and our team, and I hope for all of you. As Jeannette and I discussed moments ago, the Poetry Teatime website is a labor of love. We have been captivated by a vision and it is extraordinary to see it come to life!
My heart is full. I feel a shift coming to the way homeschooling can be known and experienced. Homeschooling has, for too long, been about “doing it right” whether the “right doing” came from a rigid schoolish application of text books, or the totally radical version of unschooling.
For decades, homeschooling has been a defensive movement—trying to prove to nay-sayers that it has value, that it is not only as good as, but better than, the public and private school alternatives. That worry/anxiety was necessary in some ways. It caused home educators to take the educations of their children seriously and it gave them the courage to stare down the traditional educational establishment.
Today, though, it feels like we can move on. As homeschooling finds its footing in the mainstream, we can let go of the need to wear sandwich boards and ring bells. Instead, perhaps we can turn our attention to the heart of our homeschool hopes and trust them. And what are those?
When these two experiences are natural to the family, learning flourishes. When either is absent, no amount of “right doing” fixes the stress and sadness that are beneath the daily drudgery.
Poetry Teatime is that sweet spot—the nexus of warmth and academics, family and learning.
It’s a model of sorts—a felt sense that can be remembered in the body (not just wished for in the mind). When you’ve experienced that deep dive into poetry and shared learning, you will want to find ways to bring that same spirit to other subjects. Your own idea of what it means to homeschool shifts—it’s not about hitting markers or filling in workbooks or passing tests.
It’s this other thing—the thing we thought we were signed up to do only didn’t know how.
Today—it feels like we fully opened the door to “The Enchanted Education.” Your first blush with enchantment may just be poetry teatime.
Enchantment is not the result of mom working hard to throw a party that the kids will like. Rather, enchantment shows up spontaneously—when we “set the table” and enter fully into the joy of whatever topic is before us.
It’s my wish that homeschooling families would know happiness in all aspects of their lives together. Seems like poetry teatimes are a good place to start.
Thank you, again, for all the love today! It was a bit like a holiday for our team, because you made it so.
xo Julie
