Who can study the UK without studying tea? We read about tea traditions online, and then we chose a date and time for our tea party.
My Big Helper created an invitation for her friend, and we delivered it to her mailbox that night.
We chose to have our tea party on an early release day from school – so the Big Helper and her friend were finished at noon. My Little Man and I picked them both up, and then they played while I added the finishing touches to our table.
I covered the table with a simple tablecloth and used a cake plate to arrange our treats. We planned our menu after studying the recipes on this site. We learned that it is standard to have a few sandwiches (usually with a cream cheese base), to have a few sweets, and to have something fruity.
We made our menu be a kid-friendly version of this. We served cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with the crusts cut off and in different shapes for easy identification. We also made simple cream puffs, brownies, blueberry muffins, and crumpets. We served everything with strawberry jelly and honey. Instead of tea (to avoid the caffeine and sugar), My Little Man chose to have sugar-free strawberry juice.
When the time arrived, our trio decided to “dress” for tea. I”m not quite sure how they think the Brits appear for tea, but they were having too much fun for me to rain on their parade.
My Big Helper took her role as hostess very seriously, and she practiced pouring for days leading up to the party with a miniature tea set.
All three children found this small set difficult to use, but they got a kick out of using it – and they loved holding onto the lid to keep it from flying off!
Tea didn’t last long – the kids were too hungry and too excited to try everything to linger. They inhaled several pots of ‘tea’ and sampled everything on the platter – which I refilled several times. We decided that English crumpets are not quite for us, and they weren’t fond of cream puffs, either, but they loved the idea of different sandwiches in shapes according to a certain identification ‘code.’
While I thought they might have eaten enough to warrant a very small supper, they were true to the tea party spirit and were ready for another meal just a bit later.
I’m definitely seeing more tea parties in our future – and we’ll be checking out the UK section of Epcot to see what tasty treats they might feature!
Do your kids have tea parties? How do their parties work?
