Poetry Teapot: Preserving Tea Time Memories
If you homeschool and are aware of the Charlotte Mason community, you may have heard of a concept called Poetry Teatime. Coined by Julie Bogart of Brave Writer, poetry teatime is a chance to slow down with your children and enjoy the opportunity for a treat and tea (or lemonade). It’s recommended during this time you break out your favorite poems and instill a love of poetry in you children.
“(poetry teatime) offers you and your children a break from the fast-paced demands of homeschooling, parenting, and household running. Everyone sighs a collective “ahhhh” as they settle into their chairs, tea cups or mugs in hand, poetry books scattered across the table.”
When my daughter was small, we used poetry teatime to work through our beauty subjects. Artist study, composer study, poetry, and picture books were all done during poetry teatime. We’d bake a treat, pour tea in fancy cups and enjoy our time together.
When my daughter was in kindergarten we enrolled her in a one day a week co-op. Poetry teatime becomes an after school tradition that we looked forward to each week. By this time her love of poetry had been secured so when she entered first grade, we added our weekly recitation to the mix. At this time we had brought home our son.
When we added our recitations, I wanted a way to preserve the favorite lines from our monthly poems. I had found a white teapot at the thrift store and brought it home with no purpose to fulfill. Thus the poetry teapot was born.
At the end of each month my daughter chooses her favorite line from our recitation poem and we’ll write it on the teapot in sharpie. It’s taken us 3 years but our teapot has officially been filled up. What I find beautiful in seeing these lines written out on our thrifted teapot is that they’re tangled up in the memories of our teatimes. The cookies we baked, the apple cider, hot coco, and lemonade. It’s easy to start reciting a line off the pot and have my daughter finish the rest of the poem. I’m taken back in time to when she was a preschooler, kindergartner, back to first grade. It’s as sweet way to preserve our memories together.
Creating a poetry teapot is fairly easy.
Supplies:
Clean teapot
Oil-based Sharpie
Each month write your child’s favorite line of poetry on the teapot. Be careful not to wipe the teapot off or the sharpie will smudge. Once it’s completely filled up bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Now that our teapot is full it’s proudly displayed on our homeschool shelf. While I’m sure it could withstand a mild hand washing and dusting, we haven’t attempted to put it in the dishwasher.
It is my hope that one day I’ll send my children out in the world with a collection of their favorite poems, delicately written on a teaser for them to (hopefully) look back on these wonderful days together.
