We do Poetry Tea Time on Tuesdays, because… alliteration. 🙂
We’ve been skipping our tea times a bit lately, which is sad, because they are a well loved part of our week. This month, my kiddo’s Raddish Kids kit came with a recipe for scones. I thought they’d be perfect for Tea Time, so I suggested we make time for tea this week. She agreed. By mid afternoon I was feeling a little frustrated, because we had other things we needed to do and we’d only gotten through tea time.
Then I really LOOKED at what we’d done, and realized we were well ahead of the game for the day. 😉 It’s funny how it’s easy to think you’re not doing “enough”, when you’re actually doing a LOT!
The kiddo woke up late, around 10. I think this puts me off a bit, because I feel like we’ve already missed so much of the day, and we’re already behind… but I remind myself, that she needs the sleep, and it’s actually a good thing.
We got going. After reading through the recipe a couple times, she gathered all the supplies she’d need to make scones. She’s all about the Mis en place… Chef Anne Burrell would be so proud. 😉 She started measuring her ingredients, and following the recipe. She ran into a bit of a snag. The recipe called for 2/3 cups of something, but we only had a 1/3 measuring cup. She quickly realized she could just use 2 1/3 cups. She carried on.
When she got to the point where she had to cut the scones to put them in the oven, she needed to cut 8 scones from each circle of dough she’d made. She started willy nilly cutting pieces and I was like, “Hey there… might there be an easier way to cut 8 equal pieces?!” We thought about it a bit, and she finally realized she could get 8ths if she kept cutting the circle in half.
Once the scones came out of the oven, and boy did they smell delicious, we sat down with some poems. We’ve been studying Japan so I suggested we take a look at the Haiku. We read some Japanese Haikus, in both English and Japanese. We discussed the pattern of Haiku. We talked about syllables. We talked about why some of the Japanese Haikus didn’t follow the 5,7,5 pattern when translated into English.
Then we found a youtube video of Haikus written by Japanese Americans held in internment camps during WWII. We talked about the situation surrounding the internment camps. We talked about how Italian and German immigrants were not interned, just Japanese. We also discussed why this might be, though we had no good answers. We listened as the Haikus were read. It was quite moving. I talked to Hanna about how I’d never learned about Japanese internment when I was in school, and didn’t even know about it, until we started homeschooling!! She was surprised.
Then we lightened the mood a little and read some funny Haikus written by kids, about everyday life. We also talked about “Who am I” haikus, and read a couple of those as well. I asked her if she’d like to try to write a Haiku and she did. We collaborated on the first couple, and then she got the hang of it! She started coming up with them all on her own, and some were quite fun.
Here’s one we worked on together:
I’m training my dog
So he will listen to me
Hey Duke, Sit Pretty!
Here’s another she wrote herself:
She is a runner
She’s a golden yellow cat
Her name is ‘Kenzie
and another:
His name is Lucky
He is a furry black cat
Aren’t black cats bad luck?
We wrapped up tea time, and went on to other things. As we were driving to town later, I heard tapping from the back seat, and an exclamation. “I’ve got another Haiku!” She came up with a few new ones through the rest of the day. It seems the lesson really stuck. 😉
Did you see all the things we covered during Tea Time yesterday? Do you see why I stopped feeling bad we “only” got through tea time? Yeah, there was math and science in the baking. There was language arts in reading poetry and the recipe. There was writing in writing Haikus. There was social studies and history, learning more about the internment camps, and Japanese Haiku. There was so much going on, and it was all “just” Poetry Tea Time to her. 😉
I can definitely see why it’s our favorite part of the week.
If you want to get started with Poetry Tea Time, here’s a free guide that can help you get started. Don’t pressure yourself though, all you need to get started is a snack a drink and a little poetry . 😉 And once you get started, come share how it went with us in my private Facebook group for secular relaxed-eclectic homeschoolers with older kids! See you there.
