An Introduction into Poetry Teas

I wouldn't say that I am overwhelmed by homeschooling, but I am certainly researching homeschooling tips and tricks anytime I get a chance. Sometimes that might take me down a rabbit hole. One such hole was the concept of Poetry Teatime. My curiosity was piqued; this takes something very near and dear to my heart, tea time, with something I cannot stand, poetry. I have never been able to understand poetry, my brain just doesn't work that way. So much so that the few books of poetry we have been gifted have sat on bookshelves unread by me to the children. (And I am sometimes guilty of donating them to charity.) Now this homeschooling tangent had brought me to a website essentially challenging me to not pass my bias along to the children. And it could be fun for all my children, both homeschooled and traditionally schooled because tea time snacks has always been a part of our after school lives. If nothing else it would give me a chance to set a pretty table.

I began by perusing bookshelves in everyone's rooms looking for any book that might technically contain poetry, or at the very least have a nice cadence. Once this pile of books was assembled it sat on a spare chair in the dining room awaiting me to get it together to actually host the tea time, after school activity schedules are hard. Finally yesterday I found that perfect combination of free time and beautiful weather so I decided that our inaugural Poetry Tea could be held outside. In recent years I've gotten sucked into Emma Bridgewater pottery and I just splurged on a big teapot during a sale so I decided to set the tea table with them. A little bit of fruit, a box of Ikea alphabet cookies, and apple cider were enough to satisfy the children into sitting for me to read aloud.

I was pleased that all of them read a couple poems as well. We talked about authors they might know of who write poetry and eventually they landed on Shel Silverstein. Both the boys have one of his books and I encouraged them to bring those to our next tea.

This is the collection of books that we read:
All For Love by Tasha Tudor
Hi, Koo! by Jon J. Muth
The Springs Of Joy by Tasha Tudor
The Real Mother Goose