A Very Civilised Afternoon of Tea and Poetry

Tiger has always loved the afternoon tea.  He loves that we make it a special occasion -- with beautiful china tea set, specially baked treats, and beautifully laid out table cloths.  You know, the full works.  It didn't occur to me to do anything more with our afternoon tea than just sitting and eating until I saw what Lucinda does with hers.

Poetry Tea!  What a great idea!  I followed the links in her post and felt greatly inspired by the Tuesday Teatimes to start making more of our afternoons.  It so happens that I am starting to think about focusing a little more on writing and poetry, so these inspirations couldn't have come at a better time.

I ran the idea past Tiger -- I am beginning to consult him more when I plan things to do with him so as to expose him to the planning process in order to prepare him for more autonomy in structuring his own education in the future -- and he was keen to try it out.

We had run out of teatime snacks so I asked him whether he wanted to bake something fresh to mark the occasion.  He was happy to do so and quickly decided that he wanted to make scones.  How appropriate!

He chose a scone recipe and pretty much did everything himself.  I stayed on the side to supervise and to help take some ingredients from the top shelf of the cupboard.

While the scones were baking in the oven, Tiger ran out to the garden to pick a few stalks of daffodils and arranged them neatly for our table.

After 20 minutes in the oven, we were treated to the smell and sight of freshly baked scones.  Tiger thought they looked more like buns but they definitely tasted exactly like scones.

We were now finally ready to have tea.  Usually I would be rushing around the house trying to tidy up during the short break in the afternoon, but on this day I actually sat down to enjoy poetry and tea.  It was wonderful to just sit and enjoy the moment.

Since it was our first time having poetry tea and with only two of us, it was a very relaxed and informal affair.  I gathered the poetry books we have on the bookshelves and explained to Tiger that the idea was to take turns sharing one or more poetry or verse that we like from any of the books, while the other person was eating.

After reading, Tiger was inspired to make up his own verses.  Seizing the opportunity, I quickly ran to get a pen and notebook to act as his scribe while he recited his impromptu poems.  This was going way beyond my expectation!

Tiger asked whether we could do this everyday, which shows how much he has enjoyed this trial run.  I suggested that we keep it to once a week for now since it's a new routine/habit that we are trying to establish so doing it at a reasonable pace will keep our interest up, rather than sprinting at it then losing our momentum when we run out of steam.  Once we get the hang of doing this, maybe by the end of summer, we will then look into increasing its frequency.

My previous attempt at introducing poetry to Tiger felt very clumsy and awkward, which was why it didn't get very far.  Now I am pleased to have finally found a natural way to introduce this beautiful part of language arts into our home. 

This post is linked up to:
1) Look What We Did!
2) Spring Carnival
3) Homeschool Mother's Journal: May 10, 2013
4) Collage Friday - A Big Change and A Big Sale!
5) Homeschool Review: May 10, 2013
6) Hobbies and Handicrafts - May10
7) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One That Was a Roller Coaster
8) Kids in the Kitchen  - Family Taco Night
9) Hip Homeschool Hop - 5/14/13

It is also featured on Tuesday Timetime: Daffodils.