Theme Days: Poetry Teatime
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Pinkies out! Clinkies! It’s time for tea with poetry. Seriously, just sitting in rest together as a family, sharing captivating stories and reveling in beautiful, creative, and sometimes pungent words is the best part of our homeschooling day. It doesn’t take much - and it’s a big bang for your buck.
Tea Time
Consider having your teatime as a family - which means waiting for the spouse. Everything involving my kids is always more fun for us when the Spouse is there. Pick your teatime for breakfast before your spouse leaves for work, dessert, or even Saturday brunch. If your spouse can’t attend either which way, then maybe plan it for actual tea time - which, if you were on a Princess Cruise Line on your way to party in Cabo- it would be at 3 PM (and for me, Cruise Time is always the best time). The Spouse totally wanted to be there, so we made teatime our dessert time.
Crumpets
Um...yeah....a “spongier, wetter version of an English muffin” does not sound tempting to me, so instead of crumpets I set out fruit, make scones or cookies, or buy fudge for the occasion, depending on the time of day. I might set out Mary’s Crackers and sliced cheddar cheese to balance out all the sugary treats.
Flavored Tea
So, my kids don’t really care for tea unless it’s Passion Fruit by Tazo...which I never seem to have on hand when we have tea parties - but they love carbonated water too. So usually we fill our teapot with Bubbly or three Honest Juice boxes. Martinelli’s Apple Cider works too. Just make sure their “tea” is something fun for them.
Setting the Scene
I’ve always had a ton of elegant tea party-ish dishes - mostly from thrift stores, so my eclectic table is every child’s dream of what fun fancy looks like. Throw a floral table cloth on your table and clutter it up with every kind of cup and saucer, creme and sugar, plus some flowers - and it’s a feast for the eyes with all the different colors and patterns. Ever since my kids were two years old, we have had monthly tea parties to teach manners. So they are super safe with my delicate dishes. The Setting the Scene teatime component is crucial - it’s what makes the teatime a real tea party. Without the special fancy fun (and the treats too), it just loses some of the magic.
Poetry
The poetry can be whatever you want. Keep it simple, and let everyone choose what poetry they want to share. Have a basket of books full of poetry to leaf through ahead of time or even in the moment. Or, ask everyone to make one up on the spot. Or, make it a type of poetry, and put those books on the table to peruse. There’s no wrong way to do it - except one way...I strongly advise that you do NOT make it a big educational, formal lesson at the table. There’s nothing like a worksheet to Debbie Down the party. I’ve tried it, and it definitely destroyed the mood. If you have to say “Listen, I’m talking…,” with that stern annoyed voice, then you know things have gone down hill. My suggestion for those super “it’s an opportune moment” type people like me: teach the poetry section during your formal lessons during the non-poetry-teatime part of the day. I have a sample Poetry Teatime Preparation Book here as a free downloadable for you. I used it to introduce the various kinds of poetry and then focused on the first type - Narrative.
Since we have four Shel Silverstein poetry books, I used that author as our case study, which is very interesting! And again, do not teach a lesson during your Poetry Teatime. Do it before.
Games
My kids were super excited about the game we planned for our poetry party. This is not necessary at all - but since I seem to always over-plan and over-educate everything I do, we of course had a game. First, during the day, my kids, the Spouse, and I were asked to write down parts of speech on little slips of paper. I had mason jars labeled, NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE, and ADVERB. Those little slips were folded up and placed in their corresponding jar. Everyone submitted at least 20 words total. Then, during Poetry Teatime, after we each read 2-4 Shel Silverstein poems (and giggled a ton), we played the game. This is what my kids had been waiting for. They were finally going to get to use the tooting, burping, indulgent, and repugnant words they had submitted in the “Poetry Jars.” But hey, at least they are practicing parts of speech and delectable word choice. The way the game worked was, when it was your turn, you draw one word out of each jar, and on the spot create a narrative poem using those four words. I cannot tell you how astonished we were when my son got bathroom, sit, and stinky as three of his four words. WHAT? It was exactly the words a nine-year-old boy needs to really feel like his voice was heard. My kids loved the game so much, they each wanted a second turn.
No one wanted Poetry Teatime to end. Needless to say, Poetry Teatime takes the teacake.
P.S. From an Expert
For more information about Poetry Teatime and other awesome out-of-the-box ideas, read The Brave Learner, by Julie Bogart, Poetry Teatime guru. She has been a huge inspiration to me, and her book has expanded my entire world of what education and homeschooling can be. A number of my friends have read this book as well, and they too say it’s their single-most favorite homeschooling book.
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