The WINNER of our Poetry Teatime Big Bundle Contest!

Congratulations, Alisha!

Poetry is something that I always wanted to expose my kids to, but I never felt that they were ready. I wanted them to spend a good time exploring poetry in our homeschool, but I felt that pokemon, and graphic novels would never waver in lieu of classical literature. However, I have recently found that there is a secret to get your kids interested in poetry. It is so simple, free and easy that anyone can do it. Does it sound too good to be true? It did for me, but then I tried it and now I am hooked...

She must have heard me crying...I was on the phone with a doctor about my special needs son. I was upset, my voice was shaking and tears were streaming down my face. After I pulled myself together, I walked to our kitchen. My 2nd grade daughter had put a table cloth on the table and gathered all the supplies for a Tuesday Teatime. I cried again. She said, "I thought you needed a tea time mom."

by Danielle Ayers Jones

I pour steaming water from the kettle over tea bags in our favorite mugs and tea cups. Earl Grey in a blue willow china tea cup for me. Sophia chooses the Tom Kitten tea cup and the boys pick out the mugs they painted in an abstract expression-like style a few years ago. They all select the gentle orange flavor of Constant Comment as their tea of choice.

We are spontaneous poetry tea timers, using it as a stop gap on those days where nothing seems to click. It always works. But this particular teatime was really special to me.

On this particular day my parents came over for a visit. For complicated reasons, there has been a bit of strain in the relationship between my daughter and my mother. Because of this I am always looking for relaxing and joyous ways for them to connect. The day was unpleasant outside and the kids were starting to get antsy, so teatime was the logical activity du jour.

Today's featured teatime is one of our contest entries! Enter today!

My name is Valerie and I have two darling boys named James (5-years) and John (2-years). We had a glorious time today celebrating our first (of MANY) poetry teatimes. Thank you so much for encouraging us to wrap tea and poetry together into a loving and warm embrace. The two truly belong to one another, and my boys and I enjoyed a beautiful afternoon, savoring them both.

When you pair poetry with tea, your children create a connection between contemplation and rest – Julie Bogart

Yes, we are a tea drinking nation so this was a pretty natural move for me (smile); our home education has been established over pots of tea around our dining room table but there’s something quite special about an intentional ‘stop’ to pretty up the table, plate up treats, brew a combination of Earl grey and English breakfast tea in our large white pot and sit around piles of poetry books, ready and waiting to be thumbed, flicked and read aloud.

One of the elements of the Brave Writer Lifestyle is Tuesday Teatime. We didn’t get out our finest china this time, but I may have to dig it out. I already know my boys love being read to. I didn’t know how they would like reading poetry to each other. They both actually had a lot of fun!

We’ve just started using Brave Writer end of last year and the beginning of this school year we started the Teatimes. The kids were really excited to share poems together. My son (age 12) bought me a book “Sixty Poems” by Rudyard Kipling this summer at a used book sale in anticipation of these teatimes, so we tried some of those out, in addition to our Robert Louis Stevenson favorites.