Tea and Poetry

One of the ideas I picked up from the wonderful book The Writer's Jungle is to have a weekly "Tea and Poetry" time. It's meant to inspire a love and enjoyment of poetry. We have tried it these past two weeks and absolutely LOVED it. Sometime during the morning, we all take a break, head upstairs for special drinks (not just tea!) and share our favorite poetry. The boys drink Brent's leftover coffee (I know, Bad, Bad Mother!), Quinn has some milk, and Cait has either milk or vanilla tea.

I have the book Poems, Old and New, and Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk ends (hardly great poetry, but right now it's fun and silly!) and there are a few in their First Language Lessons and Rod and Staff English books.

At some point during the morning or over the past week they are to have found a poem they enjoyed and prepare to read it with inflection and expression and accuracy. We go around and read or recite them. That's it. No hoopla but they are LOVING it. I hope it will attach a pleasant attitude toward poetry in their future. I always found the tedious "learning ABOUT poetry" such a bore. But there is such emotion and depth in good poems. One day, in the future they'll learn about the meters, rhythms, and rhyme, but for now, I just want to make it something they enjoy. And, as always, adding food or drink to it will definitely make it more palatable! LOL!

My hope is that in the future, we can kind of expand this to include our "discussion" of literature. Then we can bring in the talk of literary elements and themes and messages. I hope to make it something everyone can't wait to get to each week! So far, so good!