National Poetry Month Series: Tuesday Teatime

This may be my favorite installment of my National Poetry Month Series because it’s about sharing poetry with my kids! Julie Bogart, founder of Brave Writer and The Homeschool Alliance also spawned a movement about 15 years ago that continues to punctuate the weekly or monthly rhythms of families in the homeschool community worldwide. It’s called Poetry Teatime. It is the simple idea of reading poetry aloud to your children as you are gathered around a pot of tea (or cocoa, or whatever you enjoy, really) and something to nosh on. It doesn’t have to be fancy or it could be. The point isn’t how grand it is, the point is exposing our children to the wide range of vocabulary available to us and hopefully fostering a love for language along the way as our kids see and hear the playfulness and richness of the written word through poetry; and how it can give light and credence to every human emotion. Can’t forget that. In our house, Poetry Teatime used to take place on Wednesdays, but my middle, Carina, declared one day that it should be on Tuesdays and we should call it Tuesday Teatime. Being that I’m a sucker for alliteration, I went for it. We may have changed the name a bit, but the principles are the same. The giddy anticipation for weekly Tuesday Teatime is palpable in our house and the kids (even Gabriel!) love every part of it: setting the table, pulling out their choice tea for the day, calling dibs on their favorite vintage teacup and saucer, and holding their pinkies up while they sip! It’s just a simple, delightful time in our home that we treasure. Here are some of the poetry books we keep in rotation.

In addition to Tuesday Teatime where I read poetry aloud, I make sure I incorporate poetry into our weeks by listening to podcasts where the host recites poetry. The episodes are not long at all and it’s just a good way to tune their ear to cadence, inflection, and rhyme. Here are the current ones on our podcast shelf.

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Not every kid is going to love poetry, and that’s okay. Not every kid wants to eat the rainbow, but don’t we try our darndest for them to eat what they should because we know it’s for their well-being? Exposing our kids to the written word through poetry and rhyme is of great value to their development. Beyond all that, however, is the simple fact that it is another way to connect with our kids. And isn’t that the best part of what we do anyway?

 

Happy Tuesday Teatime, amigos!

Where Grace Abounds: New to Homeschooling with a Toddler in Tow

Good morning!

This is just a quick note to tell you all that my friend and fellow blogger, Gwen Fredette, asked me to write a guest post for her Philly Homeschool Blog.  She just posted it and you can check it out here!

If you’re in the Northeast, please, please, please enjoy the beautiful weather today!

 

The Reluctant Homeschooler

That’s Nice

I remember visiting a friend’s house (who is also a homeschool mom) a few years back and noticing index cards taped all over her house with bible verses written on them. They were on kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator, on construction paper taped to her walls. I thought that’s nice and spiritually mature of her. What I know now, years later, with a preschooler that I am homeschooling and a toddler, is that it wasn’t a nice, spiritually mature thing she was doing by placing those verses in visible places throughout her home–it was a necessity. I think I can safely assume that she had arrived at the point I recently reached myself. My weakness is revealed to me on a daily basis. Every day I am seeing how I fail in my schooling, in my marriage, in my parenting–in every area, really–when I try to do it in my own strength. As I have been working through a devotional book called “Walking with God in the Season of Motherhood” that very suggestion was made: pray on verses God would show you to encourage you during this season and put them in visible places around your home.

I have been compiling my list.

Me Time

I am blessed in that I am part of a vibrant homeschooling community here in Philadelphia. It was not a new concept to me, but it was one I didn’t readily welcome for my own family. I was certain that teaching was not my gift and that it would only be an act of God that would ever lead me to homeschool. I knew that it would require more of me. I had dreams of what my days would look like when my daughter went off to school. I’d be able to do more beautification in my home by way of DIY projects and decorating (hello, HGTV!); I’d be able to read for leisure and write again on my blogs, as well as creatively; I’d have the time to experiment in the kitchen and make elaborate dinners because I love to cook–I particularly love to bake; and I’d be able to keep my house in order. I was looking forward to that time.

One Step Closer

I began looking into preschools for my daughter when she was 3 and what I found was that the half-day schools or even 3-day-a-week programs were more than we could afford, and the affordable (or free) schools were Monday through Friday from 8-something in the morning until 3 or 3:30 in the afternoon. I just didn’t see that option being a good fit for our daughter. She’d been with me all day, every day of her life since the day she was born and suddenly she’d be gone almost the entire day. That would be too much for her. And for me.

So, I decided to homeschool for preschool. I listened to recommendations from friends on where to begin. I researched like crazy and decided on a Letter A Week curriculum. It was a disaster. I got through the first 4 weeks (up to letter D) and gave up. I felt like a failure. See, I was right. I can’t do this! How would I ever make it through a whole year?  I prayed.  And prayed, and prayed, and prayed.  I took it as a chance to see what worked and didn’t work.  I learned more about the different homeschool styles (there are 5, by the way. Who knew?) and realized that I had overcomplicated things the first time around.  As a creative person, I like to put my stamp on things either by changing them a bit or trying to think outside the box; but, that wasn’t going to work for us with this whole homeschooling thing.  I needed to keep it simple, especially since I had another baby in the house.

So, instead of creating my own curriculum like I did with the Letter A Week (I used a general model, but plugged in my own lessons and activities), I chose a complete curriculum and decided to stick to it.  I still blocked off all of November and December to focus solely on Thanksgiving and Advent/Christmas.  (The jury is still out on whether or not that worked because I found out I am pregnant in the middle of November and my first trimester has thrown quite the curveball into my homeschooling.)

Committed

Arguably, the biggest predictor of success vs. failure in homeschooling is if you are an active participant in your local homeschool community.  If you get plugged in, you are more likely to succeed than if you fly this thing solo. I remained part of the field trip group I’d been in the previous year and joined another one; I also joined a homeschool co-op.  After experiencing the benefits of homeschooling firsthand and seeing how fruitful it has been in the lives of all the families with whom I am connected–not to mention the way I have seen my daughter blossom–I am sure this is where God has us at this time.  It can be daunting to commit to homeschooling for a certain number of years or grade levels, especially as the family grows; so, my approach to homeschool is the same as my approach to my family’s growth (in numbers): one kid at a time, one homeschool year at a time.

 

Paying the Creativity Forward: Spotlight on Philly Homeschooling

I feel like there is a stigma attached to homeschooling.  I remember there was when I was younger and I think it lingers a little still today. It’s as though people think the curriculum isn’t as challenging as that of traditional schools, whether public or private, that an untrained parent couldn’t do the job of a trained professional teacher, and that the kids come out as loners with deficient social skills.  All myths. Reports suggest that (as of 2009), on average, homeschoolers perform 37 percentile points higher than public school students on standardized achievement tests.  I don’t know what the statistic is for private schools, but the larger point is that a homeschool education is not “less than”.  There are homeschool groups and networks that organize field trips and gatherings for science classes, gym classes, music classes, etc. and do so regularly. I won’t pretend to know all of the nuances and intricacies of homeschooling, but many families in my church are homeschool families, each with varying reasons as to why they choose to teach at home, and their kids are amazingly well-adjusted and bright.  Now, I’m not saying that we will be a homeschool family, not because I think there is something wrong or subpar about it, but because, right now, I don’t see God pointing us in that direction.  But, I have become a little bit of a witness to how this system works through my friends and, additionally, I was invited to be a part of an endeavor that aimed to promote the creative arts within the homeschool community.

Last summer, my friend from church, writer, and fellow WordPress blogger, Gwen, approached me about participating as a judge in a homeschool writing contest. Gwen is a homeschool mom.  She has 4 fantastic kids, 3 of whom she is still schooling.  Her oldest just entered high school this academic year, I believe. Gwen has been at this homeschooling thing for quite some time now and while she raves about the benefits and advantages of homeschooling, she has expressed some frustration that homeschool kids are typically excluded from many national contests.  So, this very committed teacher and mother took it upon herself to create one—specifically, a writing competition—just for homeschool kids.  The response was really amazing for the inaugural year.  She had several sponsors who were able to contribute prizes for the winners and homeschooled kids from all over the country with a penchant for writing and storytelling entered their submissions.

Gwen lured me and two other friends who are also writers/bloggers, stay-at-home moms, and/or homeschoolers to her house last November with the promise of donuts and an afternoon of reading.  As we nibbled on gingerbread & donuts and sipped our teas, we leafed through stories of Wild, Wild West adventures, dramatic monster escapes and treasure finds (to name a few themes), all from the creative minds of 3^rd-8^th graders.  As each of us is a mom first we are natural nurturers and it was a little challenging in the beginning to put on the judge cap.  We wanted to acknowledge the bravery of each student in submitting a story in the first place, but alas, we had a job to do.  Finally, 1-3^rd places were selected for each of the 3 categories: 3-4^th graders; 5-6^th grades; and, 7-8^th graders.

As we chatted here and there between reading it was clear that we had all been inspired by the purity of these kids’ imaginations and left wanting to write more ourselves.  Reading the stories, in some cases, was like getting to peek into their home lives, too, which I found very endearing, like there was something special I knew about each child.  The whole experience was precious and I look forward to judging again next year.

If you’d like to read the winning submissions head on over here!  Hey, did I mention Gwen even wrote 3 faith-based science curricula?  If you’re a homeschool mom or know of any, you may want to take a look at it! It’s called Glory of Kings Science.

I had this random thought the other day that seems so logical to me now.  If I work every day to be the parent I want to be (thoughtful and intentional about my daughter’s spiritual, intellectual, and physical development), then I, too, am a teacher.  I am the first teacher she will ever have.  Kinda adds a new dimension to the term parenting for me. 🙂

“Think and think right and think low and think high.  Oh, the thinks you can think up if you only try!” – Dr. Seuss

Rosario

Sources:

http://www.hslda.org/docs/study/ray2009/default.asp