Poetry Teatime: Indian Spiced Tea

Poetry Teatime: 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

Poetry Teatime

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Friday Freewrite: Write an review…

for a movie you saw recently. Don’t worry about format. Just get writing. Rant, if you like. Sometimes it’s more fun to write about a movie you thought was silly, ridiculous or stupid than one you loved. Go for it!

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“He’s not growing!”

In fourth grade, I made my annual trek to the doctor for my physical. Each year, the moment arrived when the doc would line me up against the ruler mounted on his office wall to measure me. I was short. Excruciatingly short. Marking my growth helped me cope. But in fourth grade, I discovered to my horror: I had grown only a quarter of an inch! In the years that followed, my bone growth was scanned, I was put on thyroid while both parents and doctors wrung their hands wondering when I’d finally get on with it and grow.

It took awhile. My friends had long since settled into their adult heights when my body finally kicked into gear. Partway through my junior year, I became ravenous. Five meals a day, snacks between. 18 months later, I had added six inches to my petite stature!

What’s this got to do with writing? Sometimes I hear from moms who are worried. They’ve been with Brave Writer for a year or more. They see little progress. They measure last year’s writing against this year’s and have that swooping stomach sensation: He isn’t growing. I don’t see progress. But maybe he is. Maybe this is just a year of the quarter inch growth? Maybe he’s simply storing up all that energy, accumulated during the slow years for a great big burst of dramatic, lots of writing products growth that startles you with its suddenness?

I’ve noticed that when I’ve backed off of writing with a child who shows reluctance or intimidation, have kept reading aloud, conversed and chatted with him regularly, and continued the basics: handwriting/copywork/dictation, eventually writing growth happens and often happens in a burst! Six inches of growth in a year! Writing isn’t a linear process. It’s the slow accumulation of internal confidence (things to say, ways to say them) and mechanical competence. Those sometimes grow steadily, over time, without much evidence of big spurts of development. But in many cases, the growth is imperceptible until one day: Bam! The stars align and those pesky mispellings disappear. Words flow and insight develops. When that happens, it’s a relief. But just know, it was coming all along.

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Friday Freewrite: Influence

Who or what has had a strong influence in your life?

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From the Forums: When it works, it works!

Last year we took the WONDERFUL copywork/dictation class and now we are slowly working our way through The Writer’s Jungle. Today my children did their first keen observation exercises.

Samuel, age 8, dictated the following to me with just a little bit of help:

Lightsaber
———-
It has a light-blue blade with streaks of white on it. It has a red button that you pull down to open it. It has six grips on it. One has a little, tiny, white streak on it. In the back of it, it has a knob with ridges going all around it with a dot the color of bronze in the middle of it. Right above that there is this thing that looks kind of like a little clothespin but you can not close it. And it has some black on the rim of it.

On each side of the lightsaber, it has two little bumps with a circle going around it. Above the red button I told you about there is a little silver circle. Above that is a black strip that curves in a moon shape, going out to the sides. On the sides, there is a hump that goes up, around the back, and back down on the other side. Then in the middle of the handle, there is more than 55 tiny, pointy studs going around the middle. It feels a little sharpish but it has a good grip.

It tastes like stale crackers.

In the middle of the left side of the lightsaber, there is a rectangle that goes a half-inch off the side of the lightsaber. On the top of that, there is a gold line about half-inch wide and two inches long and it has perpendicular and parallell lines carved on it and it has two little black spots on the top. And on the side of that rectangle, there is this little thing coming off of it that looks like a bed and it has a black spot at one tip. At the bottom of it, near the grip, is a black hook so you could hook it on your pants.

When the blade is coming out, it sounds like a fast-moving river. When it is going back in, it sounds like a brief drum roll.

The smell is like perfume. That’s why I don’t smell it that much.
———————————–

Jane, 10 years old, wrote the following all by herself about a large multi-colored fake gemstone. (I corrected all of her spelling a punctuation errors as I typed this in):

This fake diamond is an amazing mix of colors. When I lean my head to one side, the sun relects on the little, triangular, tinted plates, creating a rose-blended lavendar, while some still remain an emerald green. The diamond-shaped, colored plates surrounding the outer edge can appear gold in some forms of lighting or lavendar, and in other cases emerald color. The inner plate can, too, appear a most majestic gold. Once I turn on the light the colors become deeper and darker like a dark, deep sea.

It feels cold to the touch, like icy metal. But it warms slowly as you keep your hand on it. The back is coated with a light metal surface.

It smells like a clear icy morning, so clear and airy almost like nothing. When I rub it on a wood surface, it sounds rocky and raspy like a not-so-clear voice coming over an old-fashioned radio. Sometimes when I touch it with a warm hand, it feels sweaty, the way it does when you grip a penny too hard and too long.

In the front there is a flat, circular, clearish plate, which is surrounded by the diamond plates I told you about. I think it is very complex and interesting to think about.
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I’m pleased with their results. We’ve read good books & they’ve done narration for many years. For the past year, we’ve done copywork, dictation & freewriting regularly. We just completed the Farmer Boy Arrow that caused us to discuss and notice descriptive details, especially for my daughter. We also recently played the communication game, which really helped my son notice & describe details. I think all those things helped prepare them for this valuable exercise. I LOVE this approach to language arts! It’s so natural, fun & productive, too.

–Betsy R

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