A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Julie,

We had our first Tuesday Teatime and the kids loved it! We had a “Silly Poetry” teatime and invited some friends to join us. My ds 9 made some flowers out of K-Nex that we placed in a beautiful Snapple vase along with some silly colored candy canes. Of course we had to dress our silliest and take silly pictures. We dined on cookies and milk colored with food coloring (except my ds 6 who preferred his to be “just white, please.”) Then each child picked some of their favorite silly or funny poems to read including selections from Runny Babbit and Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I dressed up, too, but when my husband took my picture he cut out my beautiful black and pink high heel shoes that matched my black jogging pants so perfectly. So sorry you had to miss that!

We all had a blast and my boys and their friends were planning our next teatime before they left. Thank you so much for the wonderful ideas on the Brave Writer website!

Kay

Since we REALLY want the Brown Betty teapot, we went all out on Poetry Teatime. We had a theme — hat night (it is always so hard to find just the right time to wear a tiara), candles, homemade Christmas cookies, and poetry. Asherel read me the following poem by Robert Creeley:

For Love– I would
split open your head and put
a candle in
behind the eyes.

Love is dead in us
if we forget
the virtues of an amulet
and quick surprise.

I am normally good at this, but Julie, quite frankly , we have NO IDEA what this poem means. Do you? Does anyone? Please help.

A Brave and Confused Writer

Here are a couple of photos of our tea time table and my two girls, who love tea time.

In the photos with the girls, we had homemade scones, books of the girls’ selection and “Secret of the Andes.” It was in September, and we’d only been doing tea time for a couple of weeks. The photo without kids shows our first tea time ever. I set it up as a surprise for the kids and we had to have store-bought cookies; it was a rushed sort of day and I was just determined that we were going to do tea time, even if I had to take a short cut.

This week we’re adding something new to tea time. We’ll still do some reading, of course, and discuss what we read, but we’re adding in some art appreciation, too. We’ll look at some art prints and do some observation and discussion Charlotte-Mason-style; each month we’ll switch packets of art prints within a group of 10 or so families. Each packet features a different artist or style, and I’m looking forward to learning a little about art as we linger over our tea and having another source of inspiration for writing ideas. Plus, it will save me from getting hoarse when the kids say, “read more, Mumma, read MORE!”

My girls are 8.5 and 5, by the way.

A Brave Mom

Hi Julie,
Ok, we had our first tea time (in a long time) today. We started out by making brownies, and the kids enjoyed hot cocoa and marshmallows because it was finally below 80 today in Houston!

Here is a picture of our tea time. We enjoyed reading from our poetry book and reciting some of the poems we have memorized over the last year or so.

Brave Texan Mom

Dear Julie,

I decided to share this Tea Time after reading some of the more recent stories. We haven’t made Tea Time a weekly event, but we’re getting closer.

Our Tea Time was actually breakfast time. I’ve been reading out loud to kids while they eat breakfast for some time, but decided to make this time a little different. I had already had my breakfast, but the kids were eating. Skylar,12, was having cereal and Bell, 7, was having chestnuts. Our table is always cluttered and covered with the flotsam and jetsam of our days so I had to clear a space for myself and my armload of books.

I started with a little book talk about several great books I pulled from various book shelves around the house. We have so many books and I know my kids just don’t take the time to see what’s there. I wanted to tempt them to browse our own shelves more. They were both pretty surprised at the great books right under their noses. I think I’ll challenge them to find books they never knew we had or long forgotten favorites for our next Tea Time.

I had picked out several Robert Lewis Stevenson poems to read aloud. I choose him because I knew his work would be easily loved by the kids and it was. The Wind was a favorite of everyone. We taledk for a bit about the rhythm of the poems and how RLS was so good at capturing a child’s sense of the world.

Finally we read from our latest read aloud. We had such a great time. We spent the better part of the morning sitting around the kitchen table reading, talking, listening. Good stuff.

Brave Mom of two!