It's Tea Time: Word Boxes and Blackout Poetry

We hosted out first ever Poetry Tea Time two Thursdays ago. To describe it as fun would be an underestimate!

                                                                   

                                         All three of the kids set the tables and arranged the flowers.                                                                     

They also prepared the food and made the smoothies. My heart was smiling when I witnessed all those small practical life tasks that they had been working on for the past two years in full effect. They were so natural in their steps and I did not have to intervene, not once. It was more than about Poetry to them, it was more like a culmination of what they have learned about grace and courtesy and all things practical life and they were ready to share their work with the world. 

Let me just be frank, you may not see any Montessori Materials in this post, but I hope that you are able to see how we embrace the Montessori Philosophy in everything we do. I really want you to feel the bridge between Lower Elementary and Upper Elementary. We will one day when the time reveals itself return back to our materials at just the right time. Right now they are abstractly understanding the concepts that have already been taught. This year is a review in deepening our knowledge and becoming our unique selves.  "I can do it! that phrase never goes away no matter how old you are. This needs not to be the time of information overload, but a digestion period so that they have enough room for more. They are progressing ever so fast and my friends it is so exciting to have school days and think of it as, What fun are we having today? We do our reading a loud, language lessons, and math work everyday. We haven't had the time to add in extra subjects such as science, and history on a daily basis. Still some how they are learning this stuff, and can I just say that Student CNN Rocks! Philosophy and Chess is how we wind down from the day.

                                                                             

                                                                    

                                                                               

                                                                     

   Back to poetry.
                                                              

                             
                                 
                                                                           

We learned more about Lewis Carroll, had fun listening to and finding all of the nonsense words in Jabberwocky and tried our hand at defining the meaning of the words.

                                                                              

We made word boxes so that they would have a place to hold their poems.

                                                                      

 The kids also selected a piece of poetry that I copied for them and then used paint to black out the words that they didn't want in the poem to create their very own poem.

 They all enjoyed reading their poems aloud too.

                                                                       

Just this past February this guy requested to be able to skip the whole Poetry Unit in Write Shop, now he looks forward to Thursday's Poetry Tea Time.                                                                      

I really think that these two hours dedicated to Poetry each week with peers is time well spent.