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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