Poetry Tea Time - Eclipse Theme

My kids love our Poetry Tea Time, mostly because of the tea and treats but they enjoy the poetry readings once we get into it.  I try to have these formal tea times about once a month.  I usually have poems that follow a theme and sometimes I have themed snacks too.  This month we had an eclipse themed tea party!

For our treats, we HAD to have Moon Pies!

We also made some turkey and cheese stuffed crescent rolls.  Get it?  Crescent as in how the sun appears as the moon is passing in front of it during an eclipse. Also, Rachel found some fondant I had in the pantry.  If you aren't familiar with fondant, think of it as moldable icing or edible play-doh.  She decided to make little colorful moons complete with rocky and cratered landscapes.  I stand by my original thought which was, "This is just an excuse to eat icing!"

For tea, we each picked our own flavor.  I really enjoy Mountain Rose Herbs organic teas.  Their blends are so delightful!  And they have many options for caffeine-free herbal teas for my bouncy kids who do not need caffeine.

I've learned that my tea pot doesn't have much use at our tea parties because no two people want the same tea.  So I bought a couple of these individual strainers by Yoassi on Amazon.  I love them.  You just put a teaspoon of tea leaves in the strainer, put it in your cup, cover with hot water, and steep.  They have a very fine mesh so you don't get a lot of tea leaves in your cup, it stands upright in your cup, and once your pull out the tea strainer, the little lid can be used as a dish to hold the strainer so it doesn't drip on the table.

Ok, enough about our tea accoutrement.  On to the poetry!

Although this wasn't actually a poem, it was perfect for our tea time.  I read to them an excerpt from Old Stories From British History (published 1894).  The book is public domain and I found on Internet Archive here -- https://archive.org/stream/oldstoriesfromb03powegoog#page/n18/mode/2up

At the website, you should be able to scroll through the pages to find what we read.  It's at the beginning of the book. Lesson 2, pages 4-6 talks about how people used to make up stories to explain what an eclipse was before they understood the actual scientific reason for them.  My kids loved it.  I might have to read more of these stories to them.  They really seemed to enjoy them.

We also read aloud a poem called "Eclipse" by Lillian Harris.  Then I pulled out a book of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson.  He has several poems that kind of fit with our theme such as "Summer Sun", "Escape at Bedtime" (about stars and constellations), "Night and Day", and "My Shadow".

Next month's tea time will be in October so of course a scary theme will be fitting for Halloween.  We will read poetry from Edgar Allen Poe and have some creepy treats for our tea time.