Tuesday Teatime

This year, while planning out all the wonderful homeschooly things we were going to do, I struggled with when to fit in the extras. The things that would be nice, but aren't necessary for a kindergarten curriculum. When would we read poetry in addition to our other books? Study art? Music? I didn't want them to be an everyday part of our activities, it was just to much for kindy, but I also didn't want to neglect them either. It was then that I stumbled upon the idea of teatime.

Once a week, we were to set aside a time in the afternoon for contemplation. Tuesday Teatime has a nice ring to it, so I was sold. We'd rotate- poetry twice a month, art study and composer study once a month each. We'd sip tea and listen to said composer and then talk about what we heard or felt in the music. Or What is the artist was trying to express in this painting? Or what do you think of that poem?  Except... we are six weeks into the school year and I've yet to do a Tuesday Teatime. Ahem. I found it harder to put into practice than I imagined. The boys are always outside playing, the baby is napping. (If I'm lucky- if not, well... we won't go there. Ha!) There was always something going on. I couldn't seem to make it flow into our day.

But I finally determined it was time, somehow I was going to squeeze it in. Today was our first Tuesday Teatime! Its still balmy and warm here in the south, 84 was today's high. So instead of tea and scones (or something equally English sounding) I decided on lemonade. Quite front-porch-southern if I do say so myself. Maybe not as southern as sweet tea, but we all have our limits. 

Since the baby was napping inside, we took our lemonade outside on the back porch. We sat right on the deck eating fruit, sipping lemonade and reading poems. I read from A.A. Milne's When We Were Very Young. He's the wonderful author of the Winnie the Pooh series, which we just finished a few weeks ago. The boys enjoyed listening and some were a bit silly, making for some giggles.

The boys' favorite poem from today was, "The Four Friends", about an elephant, lion, goat and mouse. They also enjoyed, "Corner of the Street". It was such a wonderful change from our morning homeschool routine. I stopped to enjoy the day, the moment, the poem. It's probably one of my favorite homeschooling moments to date. The boys didn't want me to stop reading and I can't wait to do it again. Hopefully as fall draws nearer we can do a more traditional teatime in the house. Scones and all.