poetry tea time

-
Okay, I've gotta be real here... when we first began poetry tea time to add a spark to our homeschool a year ago, I wasn't a fan.

We hadn't delved into poetry before and my kids seemed uninterested. It took so much energy to whip up a treat and pull grandma's tea cups down from the china cabinet, and our tablecloth got stained every time. The kids would get excited about starting and our tea time was always prefaced by them shouting and squealing and arguing with excitement. (They argue about everything.) Then, by the time the cookies were eaten (in .25 seconds flat) and it was my 8-year-old's turn to read his poem, the enthusiasm quickly waned. They were happier about the sweets than the poetry. I would get flustered and impatient, and then the clean up... oh, the clean up.



But one day I realized I wasn't doing it for the right reasons. Big surprise? Probably not. News flash: this wasn't about me, this wasn't even really about school... We could sit down any old day and read poetry. This was for my kids, and it was about connecting in a sweet, meaningful way. My attitude wasn't helping at all, good lord I was like Paris Gellar trying to conduct a tea time with these three little precious beasts!

I decided to let go of my expectations and consciously make our afternoon tea moments magical and light (and keep stain remover on hand. And ignore the strawberry smeared all over the table. And never mind the spilled cream). Then, something magical did happen: the kids started to love it, and they started to love poetry.

So it's been about a year now. We do poetry tea times on a regular basis, and if you know me, you know my doing anything on a regular basis is kind of a big deal. My 9-year-old is writing his own poetry. My 6-year-old spends her free time memorizing poems all on her own without my assistance (yes, really). And my 3-year-old, who has always struggled with her speech, has begun speaking gibberish with a cadence (very Jabberwocky), recognizes and gets excited about rhyming words, and brings poetry books for me to read aloud to her, even if she doesn't understand what they are about.

I can say quite honestly, poetry tea time has completely transformed our homeschool and our lives. I've learned a bit of a lesson myself, that connection is more important than perfection. *whispers to self: perfect is not an option, perfect is not an option* And I love that I am building rich memories with my kids that they will look back on, and hey, maybe they'll even continue the tradition with their own children some day.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

22/23 Homeschool Year in a Nutshell

-
Image
Gardening last summer and this spring Austen and Chase Food production, garden planning, seasons, harvesting, plant care, problem-solving, physical education and brain development through pushing/pulling (weeding, digging, carrying bags of soil, using the wheelbarrow, removing brush).   Planning and executing family meals River, Austen, and Chase Math, life skills, planning, organizing time and space, science, health. River has gotten very good at running a kitchen. He can do several things at once, while also overseeing his younger siblings in their tasks. Austen and Chase have both learned much more about cooking and baking this year. Austen frequently follows recipes entirely on her own and likes to make baked goods for the family. Chase has been practicing learning how to safely use a knife, wash produce from the garden, and make simple dishes like scrambled eggs and cookies. All kids have learned about how to prepare balanced meals and eat in a way that makes their bodies feel goo
Read more

information overload and the organized homeschool

-
Image
Executive function allows people to analyze, plan, organize, schedule, and complete tasks , but for people people with ADHD and autism, we struggle with executive  dysfunction . This makes things like time awareness/management, organization, breaking big tasks down into attainable steps, switching tasks, emotional regulation, sensory-overstimulation, and information intake quite difficult. If you struggle with executive dysfunction, it can be hard to focus, difficult to absorb information by reading or hearing (this is why people with executive dysfunction find it easiest to learn by doing), or know instinctively how much time simple tasks will take (time blindness). For me, information overload affects our homeschool in big ways. It is difficult for me to lesson plan, so I don't. My mind sort of freezes up and makes it impossible for me to sift through information to understand what's going on, and I end up misplacing things or becoming emotionally frazzled until I feel al
Read more

why we chose to homeschool : part two

-
Image
Click  here  to see part one. Even though we were six months into public school, it still didn't fit naturally into our life. I'd always planned on homeschooling and longed to pull him out, and my heart was restless; however, "it just doesn't feel right," didn't seem a good enough reason to make a drastic decision in the middle of the school year. As I said in part one, I began to pray a very specific prayer that something would happen to show me without a doubt that we should pull River out and start homeschooling, but that my little boy would be protected, no matter what that was. One morning, a week or two into this fervent, very specific prayer, I lay in bed, the sunlight streaming into the room, my four-month-old peacefully asleep beside me. I'd spent the night sick, and John was getting River ready for school and out the door. I heard River's little voice outside my room, "But I want to give Mama a kiss goodbye!" "Mama is s
Read more