"Poetry is the candy of language for young children." ~Julie Bogart
I believe that to be so. I personally find poetry to be soothing. But how should one introduce poetry to their children? How does one foster a love of poetry in their children?
Enter our Poetry Tea Time! The idea behind Poetry Tea Time is that you set aside one day a week (typically Tuesdays but choose whatever day works best for your family) to enjoy poetry. Set the table. Make it festive. Serve a lovely beverage like tea, cider or in our case hot chocolate. Serve a treat like cookies, or cupcakes. Pile the table with poetry books from the library and from your bookshelves. Make it fun.
Here is how we made Poetry Tea Time our own. If you have been here before then you've probably noticed that our children LOVE to dress up and play pretend. Poetry Tea Time is no different. The children dressed up!! That's right, the children raided the costume trunks and donned the silliest and most extravagant getup's, hats, and masks they could find. I wore a floor length dress, toboggan, scarf, and all of my jewelry. The children thought I was funny and loved that I joined in on their dress up fun. We went around the table and announced our names. The children gave themselves pretend names like Madam Belle, Mrs. Hats, Miss Elsa, Mister Armour Face and Master Jackal. I became Misses Pettypaws.
The children chose which poems they each wanted to read in turn and everyone had such fun that they all took several turns! We enjoyed poetry from Robert Frost, a mixture of Celtic poems, and some children's poems about the seasons all while drinking hot chocolate and eating homemade cupcakes that the children had made earlier in the day.
Poetry Tea Time is a big hit in our home. The children love it and are always asking for more. Of course one can never have too much poetry...cupcakes on the other hand are a totally different story.
~Erin
Read more about homeschooling on Erin's website, Nourishing My Scholar.
