Poetry teatime is my absolute favourite part of the Brave Writer lifestyle.
We enjoyed one this morning. Here’s what we did.
Setting the scene
I lit a candle and put a posy of summer flowers as a centrepiece. Often we gather flowers from the garden. Today I grabbed the fake flowers that normally live in our downstairs loo!
Food and drink
This morning’s poetry teatime was mid-morning, so I set out raspberries, cherries, blueberries and brioches. I made cocoa for the children, and tea for me.
Choosing poems
Everyone chooses their poems beforehand. They can take as much or as little time as they like over this. There are no rules.
J(8) almost always chooses poems from The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry. Today he said he was going to make up one of his poems – “I’ve got the first line, I’m just playing with the rest in my head.”
C(9) spent much of last term writing out poems for copywork. She chose to read a few of these.
I selected a few short, funny poems from Read Me And Laugh.
Poetry teatime
Poetry teatime usually kicks off with the children commenting appreciatively on how good the table looks (apparently it’s a rare thing!). Then we tuck into food and poems, taking turns around the table to read.
Both my kids adore reading poems aloud; they do it with gusto. For J(8), especially, this is an excellent opportunity – his desire to entertain completely overcomes his reading difficulties, and he amazes us with his fluency!
Reflections on poetry teatime
Memorisation
I love these lines from Tennyson’s Morte d’Arthur:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
I memorised them for English O Level when I was fifteen, and I quote them frequently.
When I read The Well-Trained Mind, I loved the idea of my children happily committing long verses of classical poetry to memory. That was before I realised that I’m not the kind of parent who can “require” my children to do things (even if that were possible).
But… I was so glad I’d learned the Tennyson. Would my children miss out, because of my non-insistence on memorisation, I wondered?
Over time, our poetry teas have given me the answer. Today, for example, J(8) announced that he was going to read one of his favourite poems – Sky In The Pie! by Roger McGough – “because I want to know it off by heart”. My children can recite plenty of poems, and find dozens more by their first lines. Not because I made them, but for the sheer joy of it.
Will they always choose “easy” poems?
I used to wonder, too, whether my children’s choice of poems would mature, without anyone prodding them on to more difficult works. Laughter helped them fall in love with poetry, but would they ever outgrow the limericks and short comedy verses that delighted them when they were six? (And did it matter, anyway?)
My answer to this question came quickly. For a year, we shared weekly poetry teatimes with a slightly older family. It was interesting to observe the poetry choices among the differently aged children. I noticed how the teenager tended to choose longer, more sophisticated works. And over time, I’ve begun to notice C(9) choosing more complex poems – though we all still love limericks.
As for me, I don’t go out of my way to choose poems to extend the children’s repertoire, but neither do I dumb down my choices. I read long poems and short ones, funny poems and serious ones, straightforward and allegorical poems, poems about spring, or elephants, or war, depending on my mood. If a poem inspires me, my appreciation will speak for itself.
Our favourite poetry books
We were inspired to buy most of our favourite books by the friends who introduced us to poetry teatimes.
* The Puffin Book of Utterly Brilliant Poetry
* Read Me and Laugh – A Funny Poem for Every Day of the Year
* Sensational! – Poems Inspired by the Five Senses
* Great Poems – Compiled by Kate Miles
* Read Me Out Loud – A Poem to Rap, Chant, Whisper or Shout for Every Day of the Year
I’d love to hear of any other recommendations you might have.
To read how the other Homeschool Help bloggers teach poetry, visit:
Highhill Homeschool – Studying Poetry with Children – A Poem a Day
Barefoot Hippie Girl – Waxing Poetical
Hammock Tracks – Poetry – How and Why to Teach It
One Magnificent Obsession – Our First Poetry Smoothietime!
Homeschool Mother’s Journal – So You Call Yourself a Homeschooler
Here at Navigating By Joy I post regularly about the hands-on way we homeschool science, maths, history, English, art, geography and a lot more besides.
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This post is linked up here:
Entertaining and Educational – Highhill Homeschool
Collage Friday – Homegrown Learners
Weekly Wrap Up – Weird Unsocialised Homeschoolers
Homeschool Mother’s Journal {September 7, 2013}
