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I want to share with you one of our family’s favourite weekly rituals: poetry tea time.
When I was first figuring out what I wanted to add in for our first year of casual homeschooling, I came across this idea, and it has become a beloved, and looked-forward to end-of-week marker ever since we started it almost 2 years ago.
The best part is, it feels very special, but is actually pretty simple. Here’s how it works:
- pick a day + time once to do it (weekly is great, but I suppose you could do it every weekday, or on the weekend, if that’s more your style)
- choose a location
- select a book of poetry
- determine a menu
- light a candle
We decided to do it as an end-of the week, fun start-of-the-weekend thing. Since tea time takes a little more prep than other lunches, we get started a bit earlier, and all pitch in. We do tea time at the kid-sized table, so they can reach everything, and it’s a special weekly ritual that’s to their scale. They usually clear off, and wipe down the table, and one of them sets out the plates (we use our fancy tree plates). While they work on that, I light the candle, and get lunch going. To make things extra, I put our meal on our nice cake stand, so it’s like a very pared-down English tea time. I sit on the floor at their table, and we eat, and I read a handful of poems, which they really enjoy. It’s a wonderful way to reconnect after the busyness of the week, and to have that time feel distinctive.
Tea time can look however you want, but I discovered for myself that attempting it without a plan can make it a bit stressful, so I want to share some ideas for each of the bulletpoints above (with the exception of day/time, as I think you can sort out your own schedule best) to help you curate your ideal tea time experience.
location – I mentioned we do ours at the kids’ table. We tend towards montessori, and enjoy this chance to utilize this table for meals —that include a grown up there—once a week. As a part of Christmas Advent, we do a “tea by the tree”, where we put the table in the living room, and eat a special menu. However, if you don’t have a kids’ table, don’t sweat it, if that’s not important to you. Use your regular table (maybe add a special runner?); picnic in the living room. For Summer right now, we’re picnicking outside, instead, as a change of pace.
select a book of poetry – depending on who you are, this might be harder than you’d think. (For example: I originally bought Where the Sidewalk Ends, because that’s poetry for kids, right? After I saw there was a fat-sharing poem on the second page, I returned it. Why did anyone read that guy? His other poems weren’t that good, either.) We started with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: the Poetry of Mister Rogers, and it was p e r f e c t. Then, we read A Great Big Cuddle: Poems for the Very Young, which was largely just sort of silly nonsense, but both my kids really liked the most upsetting poem, Bendyman, and I had to read it at least thrice for m o n t h s each week. From there, we venture to The Lost Spells, which is less good for very young kids, but they still enjoyed it enough. This last year, we started I Am the Seed That Grew The Tree, and it’s been great. They really, really do a great job of painting the nuances of each month, and season. It’s a book of poetry with one poem for every day of the year, so we divide up, and read however many we need to for the week to read the whole month of poems during the same month. It’s pricier, but you get a year’s worth of poems. But, then you also only have that one book (my kids have been wanting to cycle back to Mr. Rogers). I also read Mother’s Milk, because it was a book of poetry that I found really special, so I wanted to share it with them. I would have thought listening to poems might have been a bit difficult for the kids, but they’ve enjoyed it.
determine a menu – this can really be as simple, or complicated as you like. When we first started, I just bought frozen mini quiches from Target’s frozen aisle, and that’s what we had. The kids loved it, but after a few months, that wasn’t working as a meal for my stomach any more, so we switched to ‘fancy sandwiches’. Usually, I do mayo + mustard, everything bagel seasoning, maybe some herbs (fresh or dried), ham, and cheese. I’ll broil the part with cheese just until it melts, and then cut off the crust, and slice each sandwiches into 9 tiny finger sandwiches—perfect for small hands. But you let this be whatever works for you. Bagel sandwiches? Cool. BP&J? Great!
For the ‘tea’, we do Crio Bru, because that’s our family’s drink of choice. The kids have special cups for tea time. We also add milk foam on top on tea time days, to really make our lunch feel extra special. You could do a chamomile tea, or a lemonade, or heck, no one’s stopping you from just doing ices water.
light a candle – I find this is a really great way to set this time apart, as we kids can see the candle, and smell it. Each year, before school starts, I’ve taken my daughter to our local candle-making spot to create a new scent to be the scent for the school year. Then we each make one of the same scent to use throughout the year during tea time. It’s fun to have the years smell different.The first year was orange blossom-forward, and this year is ‘field of flowers”. (In the style of Ina Garten:) If you don’t have a local, organic do-it-yourself candle shop, store-bought is fine.
For Summer this year, we are putting poems on pause, and doing “Tolkien Tea Time” while we picnic outside. We have switched our normal sandwiches out for a more simple PB&J, or maybe just Jam, depending on who you ask (we’ve not fully decided yet). I am reading an illustrated version of The Hobbit, at a rate of a handful of pages a day (we have to read this on non-tea-time days, too, if we want it to just be a Summer book, though!). So far, the kids are loving this exciting change that sets the warm weather tea time apart from the rest of the year.
When we started, my youngest wasn’t even 2 yet, and he spent at least a year asking multiple times a week when tea time day was, because he was so excited for it! I think all 3 of us appreciate that we get to collaborate on a notable experience together, and then enjoy each others’ company.
If you decide to give poetry tea time a try, I hope it’s a wonderful experience for your family, too.
Good luck!
