We are love love loving Poetry Teatime in our homeschool this year. It's been the perfect way to actually read poetry consistently for us. There is no need to complicate this event. Light a candle, make some tea, put something pretty on the table, and read poems--for however long your kids want to. Don't set a time limit on it.
I am all about keeping things as simple as humanly possible because what I have learned in my parenting career that only the simple things stick for very long. Simple systems, simple meals, simple ideas--that's what works. That said, I do so love incorporating a theme into things like parties, holidays, and yes, sometimes teatime. This post is all about how you can use the weather, famous folks, holidays, and more to spice up your teatime just a little bit.
There is so much good poetry out there and so many exciting things happening every single month that sometimes it's fun to combine the two and merge them into one, big, happy Teatime--with a theme! Again, I would not suggest complicating this. If you want to sit down at the beginning of a month and jot down some ideas you'd like to do, that's totally fine. But I would not devote hours and hours to planning your Teatimes. Again, there's a much more likely chance you'll stop doing it if it's overly complicated.
Theme Ideas for your Teatimes
So what kind of themes am I talking about? Here's a few ideas:
- Seasons
- Parts of seasons like leaves, harvest, snow, trees, flowers
- Animals of the season--like bird migration or arctic animals
- Famous poets--celebrate a famous poet by only reading their work during teatime
- Holidays--Halloween, Christmas, New Year, MLK day, Valentine's Day
- Kids' birthdays
- Events like the circus, a trip to the zoo, the fair
- Hobbies and interests
Tips on a Themed Teatime
- Decide what you're doing a day or two before so you can prepare a bit
- Tell your kids what the theme is so they can help you gather ideas
- Pull a few things from around the house to represent the theme--baseballs, seasonal decor, dishes that fit the theme
- Scour stores like Target and Micheal's for sale-priced items you can use in upcoming teatimes. I love to buy fun napkins or little dishes on the cheap at these stores--or even breeze through Goodwill once in a while with teatime in mind
- Look online for poems that fit your theme. I have found lots of great ones by searching simple things like, "Halloween poems" or "Poems about Migration." Print them out and have them ready. I keep them in a file for future use.
- Go through your poetry books that you already have and put Sticky Notes on the poems that fit your theme
- Reserve poetry books from the library that fit your theme. This will take a little more planning, but I've found some great books this way
- See if there's some fun treats you could make to fit the theme too. Tying it all together makes it so fun and memorable
We have done themed teatime on Edgar Allen Poe around Halloween time and decorated with crows I had. My kids have gathered twigs (and sometimes whole branches) to decorate for fall themes. We've used blankets to cover the table if we have the perfect blanket for the theme.
One of our favorite poetry books is compiled by Julie Andrews, Treasury for all Seasons, because there are literally poems for everything!
Setting a theme with your teatime is a great way to spice it up, but you don't have to do this every week. Most weeks, we've just been reading any poems that work with the season. Right now we're reading a lot of Robert Frost--he seems to have loved the wintery season.
Have fun with this! Don't make it a box to check off, if you get stressed out by doing it this way--don't! But having a themed teatime is fun once in a while. Enjoy!
Visit Alicia's lovely blog, Investing Love.