poetry teatime.

I really enjoy watching writer and homeschool coach Julie Bogart on Periscope, and when I first learned of her idea for a poetry teatime with kids, I felt instantly intimidated. And I wanted to throw up my hands in despair. After all, I’m just trying to get through the day, here, people. Forget flowers and tea and poetry!

But she is just so wise and down-to-earth, and explained this little habit is one of the easiest ways to expose your children to something really beautiful (poetry!) — because kids love treats! So why not combine a set-apart time for treats with poetry?

She also says that poetry teatime is good for moms (or dads!) too, because, whether we homeschool or not, often parenthood in these little years can look like us running around like crazy all days fixing meals, doing laundry, cleaning, overseeing school/homework, and forgetting to just do something fun to sit and connect with our children.

So I determined to at least try out this poetry teatime thing. I even put it on our daily schedule for this week for accountability, and found that it was fun to have Judah ask about it, intrigued.

And I’ve decided to blog about our experience so that, like me, you can see that it’s really not intimidating at all!

Our first poetry teatime was very simple and inexpensive — it could’ve been free, but I saved my money for two things: a tablecloth from World Market (because we do school at our table and also eat peanut butter sandwiches and broccoli, and I wanted to transform it into something different and pretty for awhile), and a pack of scentless candles in glass holders from Wal-Mart.

Julie Bogart says that whatever you do, make sure each kid has their own candle to blow out! She was right — they adored that little addition (by the way, it’s amazing how much kids love candles. it’s one of the easiest ways I know to make a mundane event become special to them; sometimes we even pull out the candles during school time). When we were at the library last week, I found a couple of books from the Poetry display for us to try out, and added The Llama Who Had No Pajama, from our own bookshelf, because I know my kids love it.

Everything else we had on hand too, including the borderline-stale brownie bites from our New Members class on Sunday night. I wanted to bake something, but also wanted to make this ritual simple so I don’t stress myself right out of doing it.

Here was the key to a successful Poetry Teatime: I set everything up during the last 20 minutes of the kids’ afternoon room time. Perhaps that means I deprived my children of the fun of setting up together, but I just knew I couldn’t.even. And so I felt calm instead of harried, mostly because I wasn’t tripping over little people or having to answer two dozen questions about everything I was doing. So when the kids emerged at 3:00 pm, the table was set and the candles were flickering, the classical music station was playing on Spotify, and I was just stirring up a pot of chai tea.

If you think it all sounds perfectly idyllic: it was! And then my kids entered the room, ha ha!

Here’s the real scoop: 1. Judah instantly rebelled against even trying the chai, so I poured him apple juice. 2. Gabe got mad that Judah had apple juice and he didn’t. 3. Gabe and Noah did not like my chai, so next time I’m making a pot of hot chocolate for the three boys (although Gabe now tells me he also does not like hot chocolate) — or who knows, maybe they will just drink apple juice and my daughter-who-understands-me will sip real tea with me. 4. Noah spilled his chai all over the new tablecloth.

But guess what?! I decided in the beginning that a spill would most definitely happen, so I minded not at all! I let him go on sipping/mixing/licking crumbs off the tablecloth to his heart’s content until we were finished. I decided that arguing would happen and I wouldn’t be able to please everyone, and we’d make a mess. But that wouldn’t keep us from having fun, darn it!

And we did!

The best part of the whole thing was exactly what Julie Bogart suggested: For about 30 minutes, I sat still and looked at my kids and we laughed and read a few poems and just generally enjoyed being together. Gabe begged me to read “just one more” of Mary Ann Hoberman’s poems, while Judah dashed into the living room for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, so he could read us the song of the Sorting Hat.

At the end they asked if we can do it again next week!

Note: I was inspired to try my own adult version of poetry teatime the other night with a glass of wine and a few candles on the back porch. I read Elizabeth Alexander and Langston Hughes aloud to myself (because the experts say that’s the way poetry ought to be experienced), and I enjoyed myself so much that I thought, Now why don’t I do this more often? You should try it!