Wednesday 9 September 2015

Poetry Tea

This autumn marks the start of our Poetry Teas and this week was the very first event. I can't claim any credit for this idea. Poetry Teas are the brain child of Bravewriter. This isn't a curriculum that we have used so I can't vouch for this but the idea of a poetry tea was appealing!

For us there seem to be several benefits

  • Continuing to enjoy poetry read aloud
  • Making a special time to sit down together
  • Moving poetry out of an overcrowded morning into a marginally less crowded afternoon!
So what did we do? 

Younger Daughter made and filled a Victoria sandwich cake.


We had tea or cocoa, depending on taste, with cake and then poetry, sitting at the table with candles and a tablecloth.


The poetry consisted of some of the children's favourites: Cats sleep anywhere; Excuses, Excuses; The Dragon in the Classroom; Brian's Picnic amongst others. I see my role as expanding the repertoire so chose Michael Rosen's Chocolate Cake which was completely new to us and Macavity: the Mystery cat which isn't completely unfamiliar but the children don't know well.

So how did it go?

The cake and poetry were a success and this is something that we are keen to repeat.

In terms of doing this on a regular basis, we plan to have some Poetry Teas just for the family but also invite friends sometimes. 

My two thoughts about a regular Poetry Tea are
  • at some point, I would like to introduce something more serious than the frothy, funny poetry which is popular with the children.
  • We could do without an extra snack, of cake, every week. Youngest Son would like to eat pork pies but I was thinking of fruit! 
I'm going to need plenty of ideas for poems to read aloud to children. Do you have favourite poems for reading to your family?

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3 comments:

  1. I enjoyed seeing what you are doing with your poetry reading.
    I'd never thought of dividing the poetry reading off as a stand alone 'event' (just heard Julie Bogart mention that last week and now here you are posting about it!).

    I have rather a long list!! of favourite poems, and poetry books, we've enjoyed, over the years; but one favourite collection of poems to read during the younger years came from "A Children's Book of Verse" illustrated by Eric Kincaid.
    Enjoy your poetry time, it sounds like delicious fun♥

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  2. Sounds wonderful. Wonder if the boys would enjoy it?!

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    Replies
    1. Worth a try. The cake will go down well! Funny poems seem to be a hit here.

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