Poetry Tea Time

Marie-Therese and I have been having tea parties for forever. We have tea & treats to celebrate special Feast Days, to celebrate a regular day, to celebrate rainy, snowy, sunny days.

Before we decided to homeschool I came across Julie Bogart at Brave Writer and immediately fell in love with the style she promotes. It is a lifestyle of enchanted learning....for our children and for us as adults. I slowly began to incorporate some of her ideas into our days. Slowly because I know me and I will get overwhelmed if I do too much at once and then everything will fall apart!

Last summer I came across Julie's idea of Poetry Tea Time and fell in love. Ever since then every Tuesday (for the most part, every so often it will move to a different day of the week) is Poetry Tea Time.

I love it because it can be as simple or as involved as we want. Most Tuesday's we bake cookies or pumpkin bread...other weeks we buy a special treat such as cinnamon buns or store bought cookies or donuts. It varies but it's always a special treat that is only for Poetry Tea Time. 

I try to match up poems with the seasons or holidays but other weeks it's just a book of poems that I've grabbed from the library or from our own book shelves. Marie-Therese takes the books and looks through them and decides which ones she wants me to read. 

Some weeks poetry tea time lasts long enough for Marie-Therese to eat her treat, sip some water in a fancy mug (she has decided recently she doesn't like tea anymore) and listen to a couple poems. Then she's done and off. 

More often then not though we sit and enjoy our treat & tea, I read poems and then we get out the crayons and art supplies. 

We both treasure this quiet time together, it is helping both of us to slow down and be present in the moment, love to read/listen to poetry, and chat with each other. 

Poetry Tea Time has brought the feeling of enchantment to our Tuesday's that I am seeking in our homeschool & family life and it is also spilling over into other days too. 

In the picture above is our Saint Patrick's Day Poetry Tea Time from yesterday. There was candle light, cinnamon buns, tea, shamrock napkins and poems about leprechauns, shamrocks, green & gold nature and an Irish Legend. 

We are hoping to begin having a poetry tea time party once a month or so with a few friends, that is all in the brain storming phase right now but Marie-Therese has some big ideas!

For right now I share all our poetry tea time pictures on Instagram using the tag #poetryteatime where you can also check out all the other families who are having tea time! 

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Our Poetry Tea Time Recipe:

candles

treats

tea (or water or juice)

a few poetry books (or poems printed off from on-line)

a center piece (or not)

friends to gather together 

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There is also a new website all about Poetry Tea Time, right now it's the pre-launch page with some goodies, namely a free guide on how to start this tradition in your family. It's beautiful and promises to be a rich resource for sharing poetry & tea with your families.

Morning Basket Books March 7-11

Last week's morning book selection. The book of Nature Poetry was last week's Poetry Tea Time choice; Down Comes the Rain got us talking about the water cycle and led to us taking a trip to the beach to look at the clouds & talk about the water from the ocean going back into the sky & then coming back down; Swan & Degas led us to talk about dancing and painting; My Favorite Tree is a two page spread about different trees in North America, we read a few of them so far.

Last Week

This week we....

played with friends

helped Daddy fix a flat tire

ran errands

did some math games

had morning basket time

did some word searches

Marie-Therese read to me each day for at least 15 minutes if not longer

made lemon cookies

had Poetry Tea Time

played outside A LOT

weather journaled

went to the library

read, talked & watched a video about the water cycle

talked about & looked up pictures of land art

went to the beach to talk about the different clouds we saw, the water cycle & collect sea shells 

made land art

played on the playground

spent the day with Daddy planning out the garden: what we will plant, drawing up a "map" of the garden, buying all the supplies, filling the pots, planting the seeds

Tomorrow I will post (and Periscope) about the books we read in Morning Basket Time

Our Morning Routine

Last weekend I took a teacher in-servie weekend. I did some reading and a lot of watching of Periscopes, especially from Julie Bogart at Bravewriter and some of the other homeschooling mom's.

The biggest take-away I had was from the Morning Routine Scope and I decided that that was something I needed to implement. It has changed our days!

For quite a few weeks we had been floundering with a start time for our days. We'd be up but be lazy at getting chores done, getting dressed, figuring out where to begin our school day. The morning routine has really helped focus our days (or at least our mornings!)

The girls get up, have breakfast and are allowed to watch one show, usually a PBS one. While they are doing that I get dressed if I'm not yet and do the morning dishes & get a load of laundry going. After the show the girls get dressed then we all meet back in the living room for what we've started called "Morning Basket Time".

All it is is that basket up there filled with books. I rotate the books, Julie suggested a "rich and varied" pile of books so that's what we're going for, although for the most part I used what we had on hand for the week. As I listened to other morning routine scopes my library hold grew so big & so fast that I reached the limit and had to wait for some to come in before putting anymore on hold!

We begin our time with a short prayer & I have read a few passages from the Bible I think twice this week. This is also the time when we do our weather tracking for the day: I printed out a current month calendar & we observe out the window, she draws the weather then opens the weather app on my phone to see the temperature and the forecast.

After the weather it's onto our current read a-loud, a picture book or two and I did read a non-fiction book (a biography of Dr. Seuss) on Tuesday.

While I am reading the girls are coloring at my feet on the floor. Except for the biography, Marie-Therese was enthralled by that, that it was a true story about a real person who wrote and drew for a living. Now I am on the hunt for more non-fiction & biographies for her! When Daddy got home she picked up the book and took him step by step through Dr. Seuss' life. It was neat to watch!

After morning basket time we head to the table for some table work or art or the girls play while I do a few chores. This time has really focused our mornings and our homeschool flow. It has jump started our motivation again as we come out of February.

A list of this week's Morning Basket books:

Greetings from Somewhere: The Mystery of the Gold Coin

Nature's Paintbox (we also used this for Poetry Tea time this week)

Owl Moon

Dr. Seuss

Fancy Nancy Aspiring Artist

Oh the Places you'll Go!

Charlotte's Web (just began it this morning)

Our learning to read journey

This is the face of an extremely proud beginner reader!

At the beginning of the school year I asked her what her goals for kindergarten were. Her biggest goal was to learn to read. The frustration quickly set in when she found out that she wasn't going to be able to pick up a book in an afternoon and be a proficient reader within a few minutes.

There have been tears, frustration, stomping of the feet, putting herself down and nerves as the months have passed. She kept beating herself up and crying that she'd never learn to read.

I finally stopped teaching her. Every so often we'd do a few worksheets but that was mainly cementing her knowledge of the alphabet and writing letters. 

As time has gone on and she's relaxed I have noticed that she is picking up more & more.

I really began to notice a few weeks ago when I got back in the car from pumping gas & she was talking to Veronica. I realized that she was reading the instructions on the gas pump. Not perfectly, but it was a start. 

Daddy noticed when she was sitting beside him at the computer and she said "are you looking up fairy princesses?" because she read what he had typed.

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That was a long winded way to say that our reading journey has been slow and full of bumps in the road. Once I let go of the idea that she "should" be reading now, I read a few articles about how we shouldn't push kindergarteners to read, we need to follow their lead, and remembered my own reading lessons, I relaxed. 

She is doing fine. I read to her many times a day. She is practicing. We both have relaxed now that I've taken all outside pressure and let it go in one ear and out the other.

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Yesterday was Dr. Seuss' birthday and I read a biography of him during morning basket time. She was enthralled that it was a true story about a real person & she loved hearing about the author who wrote The Cat in the Hat, that Dr. Seuss followed his own creative dream to become a cartoonist & that he really wanted to help kids just like her learn to read.

After morning basket time we moved to table work where I had a worksheet of sight words for her to cut out & then match with their rhyming partner. I originally had planned on doing it alongside her but the toddler was being particularly toddlerish and needed me more than usual.

I half occupied Veronica & half listened to Marie-Therese and was blown away that she took the time to sound the words out, many didn't take time at all, and that she only needed help on one or two. The rhyming part she had down pat (I'm attributing that to our weekly poetry readings).

When she was done she jumped up & down and was so excited that "I can read! I can read! I don't need your help all the time!"

I later asked her to read to me but she said she was too nervous & I make her make mistakes and she would rather not. That is totally fine. We will keep practicing here and there and I will step back, allowing her the freedom to learn the way she needs. Obviously something is going right, because she really is starting to pick it up!

March 1st

It was a busy day, and at the same time it was peaceful and flowed nicely.

We all were awake early---for us anyway! So we began with our new morning basket routine and then headed to the library for Marie-Therese to hang up her painting for our homeschool group's art show. If you are in our area stop by and see the wonderful talent that our group has!

We then ran a few errands, came back home for lunch and scrapped afternoon plans for an extremely cranky toddler!! Instead Marie-Therese and I headed outside for Poetry Tea Time....all poems about nature or leaping today! 

Then we worked on our March 1st prompt for the Mud Puddles Nature Lab. We get a lot of great nature ideas from the blog Mud Puddle to Meteors 

There has been a bit of practicing spelling and some creative time making bracelets with pom-poms and pipe cleaners and a bit more drawing time before bed!

Leap Day

We began the day with our new morning basket routine. I will share more of that in the coming days once we have a week or so under our belt. But it is basically me reading out-loud from a basket of books I've put together. While I read both girls colored on the floor. That lasted for about a half hour or so and it was a good way to transition from wake up, breakfast, getting dressed etc to school time.

I then turned on the story of the Three Little Pigs from Draw Me a Story through Amazon Prime. I want them both to get more exposure to the stories that have been around for a long time!

We then did our daily weather report and after seeing that it was 55 degrees out we headed outside first for a walk around the neighborhood then another hour playing in the backyard. There was running, leaping, playing with the soccer ball and then the gathering of things that Marie-Therese found and decided she wanted to put in a "texture journal." 

After a morning of reading & outside time we all were hungry for an early lunch. Afterwards we talked more about Leap Day and then made origami frogs to "leap" across the floor. 

All in all as a first day of a more pulled together school time we were spontaneous, included more creative time, outside time, reading time & learning time. All things that I have been feeling the need to have more of. 

Beginning Again

I could do a huge "catch up" post of what we have been up to since November. But really these three pictures sum it up: outside time when we are able; baking often; art every day. 

We have sort of lost our motivation since the holidays, I think it's the winter and the lack of abundant sunshine. We have been getting together with homeschool friends at least once a week, doing projects at home, lots of reading out-loud, lots of math, practicing reading & writing. 

It all came to a head last week though: our attitudes were bad, I was anxious & frustrated over everything, Marie-Therese had energy that needed to be got out, Veronica was teething (those 2 year molars!) 

Wednesday morning I made an executive decision: vacation. We all needed a few days of break, no formal school, time to do whatever we wanted without me worrying that it was past lunch and we hadn't gotten school done. 

It was a freeing few days. I was more aware and noticed the learning that went on without me doing anything to plan it. I noticed the change in my attitude, I was more laid back and relaxed. This past weekend I took a few hours each day and dedicated it to "teacher in service day". I made lists of things I want to change, to add in, new directions to go, things that we really enjoy that we want to keep. 

One thing I want to begin again is journaling here again. I like having all the pictures in one spot to look back upon with a few words describing what we are up to. There are some changes to our days that I am excited to start implementing and I look forward to sharing them. 

Overall we are REALLY enjoying the homeschooling lifestyle. It is a wonderful fit for our family, learning side by side and following the passions not only of Marie-Therese but Ronnie & I too. 

November 2-6

We had a full week!

There was writing stories

coloring pages & talking about our beloved dead for All Souls Day

Poetry tea time where we ate cake we baked and read poems about the autumn fairies

practicing sounding out words and trying to read them

math consisted of graphing last months weather and Halloween candy: sorting, making patterns with, trading and counting

Drawing class with the homeschool co-op

socialization at ballet, drawing class, two playground dates with homeschool friends & chatting with our neighbor

outside time observing leaves, raking & finding all kinds of nature goodies: pieces of bark from the trees, a whole bunch of moss growing on the front steps & different insects

and that is all on top of our usual creating, reading, chores & living that we do!

I have declared today a day off since we all are battling colds (oh there was a building of a town with legos for a few days and then an epic battle between two forces to see who could take it over)

Pumpkins!

This morning I led a pumpkin class for littles with our homeschool co-op. We read a story about pumpkins, did some pumpkin math, decorated pumpkins (with stickers) & made a jack o lantern decoration.

Later this afternoon we did some observing & taking notes about the pumpkin she chose for her jack o lantern. She then sketched out how she wanted to carve it in her journal before writing on the pumpkin itself. We'll carve it on Friday & count how many seeds are in it (goes along with the observation worksheet).

We are planning on finishing up our pumpkin day by watching It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown after supper!

Catch up post

The other night she spent some time designing and creating her own business cards: Marie-Therese's art class to be held here at our house. With her as the teacher!

This was taken a few Saturday mornings ago. Daddy works Saturday mornings so a lot of weeks we use the morning time to catch up on any school work that we didn't finish over the course of the week.

We've been learning about the states, one state every week & a half or so. The state bird, flower & capital. We are putting together a book that includes a coloring page for each flower & bird. We've also been looking up videos of each bird. Here she and Veronica are watching & pretending to be Ruffed Grouses from Pennsylvania. 

She finished her math workbook last week so we began working with Khan Academy on-line. She'd rather have the workbook so I'm researching those....she really enjoys her math time. And doing math with a superhero cape is even better!

Making up her own Halloween math problems on the white board!

Learning to read is still slow going and sometimes painful. We are going slow, practicing letters & sounding out words. Patience with herself is needed! She gets easily frustrated that it isn't coming easy. I keep assuring her that as long as we keep practicing she WILL get it.

Each Monday is ballet class with Miss. Rachel. This is another highlight of her week!

The other day we went outside for a science experiment that she came up with on her own: put water on a sunny spot of the driveway and a shady spot on the driveway and see which one evaporates quicker. She did the same experiment with the pink paper.

We began going to the new playground near the airport. Homeschool friends; slides & watching the planes land & take off right in front of us make for a very fun morning each week!!!

Fall Festival

Last Friday was the homeschool Fall Festival at Frerichs Farm in Warren. There was pumpkin painting; scarecrow building; a hayride; searching for treasure in the sand; running around & playing with new friends; an overall very fun time!! 

Handwork: nature purses

Last week we used the pattern from the Martha Stewart website to make simple felt nature purses. I did most of the cutting out but Marie-Therese did most of the sewing, decorating the leaves, picking out yarn & buttons. She enjoyed her first taste of "real" sewing. Over the next few months we have plans to sew using the machine, to learn to knit (next week we have a how to spin yarn class at the homeschool community center!) and other hand craft projects!

Weather: Snow

We are working on a mini weather "unit" this month. Marie-Therese was gifted the set of Weather Fairies so we are reading them a-loud at night with Daddy and then focusing on the specific weather that is talked about during the day. So far we have covered snow & wind (finishing up wind in the next day or two. A separate post on that the beginning of next week).

For snow we read through a few how snowflakes are formed books from the library; in that book they talked about the molecules that make up snowflakes & how they differ from salt & sugar molecules. So we looked at grains of salt & sugar using Daddy's jewelry loop.

Then we made crystals using pipe cleaners & Borax soap. That was a fun project (taught her to have some patience with the process!) we looked at the crystals and noted how they started out slow and then grew the longer we let them sit in the borax solution. She has plans to make more as Christmas gifts!

We also are tracking the weather each day. I printed out an October calendar and each morning we observe what the weather is, Marie-Therese looks up the temperature in the weather app & records both on the calendar.