Name: Thrive! NCHE Homeschool Conference
Start: 2025-05-22T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-05-24T23:59:59-05:00
Location: Winston-Salem, NC

Tagged: books for girls, manners, play, recipes, tea parties, tea party, tea time, virtue books

This topic has 17 replies, 13 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 2 months ago by heatherma.

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May 4, 2013 at 11:38 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
dd6 brought home Fancy Nancy Tea Parties book from the library and I am tiring fast of it. I can’t quite put my finger on what I do not like about this book. Is this twaddle? I don’ t like things fancy really either. I reminded her that beauty is on the inside and not outer appearance and that we should please the Lord and not man. I never had tea parties as a child. She wants us to start having them. I need ideas on how to go about them.
I found a small section on tea parties in Large Family Logistics book and coming from another mother and more practical sounding, I could start to have a vision of tea parties in our home. She has a weekly tea party day but that is too often for me. They read and discuss a chapter from a book for girls like Raising Maidens of Virtue. I like that idea. But I think that book is for older girls. Do you have any book ideas that is more appropriate to share at tea time for dd6? I read in Raising Godly Tomatoes chapter 14 about helping your children keep a Blessing Book of things they are grateful for and review it weekly. Maybe that is good to do at tea time. What other activities do you have at a tea party?
Do you care to share what tea parties with your children look like? I have a son too. How much do I include him? I need more ideas and inspiration. Any books or websites on the topic to share? Thanks.
May 5, 2013 at 12:24 am
Wings2fly
Participant
I am also looking for recipes and menu ideas for these.
May 5, 2013 at 1:02 am
JennyMN
Participant
I have three girls and we’ve had our share of tea parties. I don’t like fancy, either.
Basically, I just bought china tea cups from the thrift store, put a tablecloth on the table (thrift store 🙂 and made their favorite cookies. Then we sat down for afternoon tea. Most of the time they don’t even want tea but lemonade. If you are doing more of a lunch you can have finger sandwiches.
We’ve never read a book at tea time but if you are looking for a character book you could read Storytime with the Millers.
May 5, 2013 at 4:25 am
Lauren26
Participant
ok, tea parties are what I am MOST excited for. I LOVE leisurely/fun activities like this where we can be creative together. I think for me I’ll just see what the kids like to do whether that’s baking together, reading poetry, maybe performing a small speech or doing a skit together? When I was a girl I would have LOVED doing these sorts of things. I actually recruited my sisters for this most of the time and those were my best memories! We would raid thrift stores and pick out “dress up” dresses with pretty gloves and hats to wear.
Maybe as a focus for each one you do you can discuss a special social skill that is to be used at social gatherings (such as active listening, graciousness, helping with the cleanup, etc)
I think it’s also special for girls to enjoy beautiful things and for little boys to see how a girl can really act like a lady, especially at this time. And perhaps your boy could practice his gentlemanly skills during this time too. You could talk about how men are to act chivalrous (and even incorporate the verse about the wife being the precious vessel)…..oh the ideas are so plentiful in my head!
Overall, just keep it fun and let the kids create and then you can throw in those educational and character building moments along the way.
May 5, 2013 at 12:59 pm
HollyS
Participant
We use garage sale tea cups…not too fancy either. 😉 I did invest in a nice teapot and learned how to steep a “propper” cup of tea. I add lots of milk and a bit of sugar to my DC’s…it’s almost 1/2 milk and they love it! Their favorite tea is Bigelow’s Vanilla Chai (also not very fancy)! I also often make Adagio’s Irish breakfast, which is a bit fancier. While I’d love to have homemade treats, we often have just tea and/or toast with jam or Anna’s ginger cookies. I don’t think it has to be super fancy or organized for them to have a good time.
To go along with our tea, we sometimes read poetry and sometimes just talk. At times we do this on a weekly basis, but at the moment, I can’t recall the last time we did one! For us, they are easier to fit into our day during the winter when we are home more.
We have cups/plates similar to these, but I think I spent $4 for a set of 8! http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Hazel-Atlas-Crystal-Dessert-Dishes-Glass-Cup-and-Plate-Hostess-Set-/161017678952?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item257d66cc68
May 5, 2013 at 4:39 pm
missingtheshire
Member
Being English tea is important in our house for me and the girls…however we did not go overboard with our tea parties. I have a lovely tea set but rarely use it, I have some antique German cups and saucers too, and we use those on occasion, but mostly we just make our tea in a tea pot, and we have homemade cookies or cakes and sit and chat…with maybe some nice flowers on the table. I grew up with this too….if I wanted posh I would go to the Ritz in London for tea, which I have done…but I prefer the more down to earth version we do at home, and most English people don’t go in for elaborate tea parties at home either, though a lot of people in the US seem to think we do: )) So relax, it it more to do with the social interaction than making everything look perfect and posh, we often now drink ours out of mugs, very nice mugs, but mugs just the same: )) Live life and don’t get bogged down in unecessary stuff, life is too short: )))
May 5, 2013 at 8:29 pm
nerakr
Participant
I haven’t tried these, but Homeschool Share has started a series called Tea Time with… Sometimes it’s an artist, sometimes a poet. Each one has a simple lesson plan and a notebooking page.
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=partner-pub-5273625939077412%3A2152870899&ie=UTF-8&q=tea+time&siteurl=www.homeschoolshare.com%2F&ref=&ss=993j165843j8&oq=tea+time&gs_l=partner.3…2888.3931.0.4187.8.8.0.0.0.0.227.921.3j4j1.8.0.gsnos%2Cn%3D13..0.0.992j165666j8..1ac.1.ppuQgAu014I#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=tea%20time&gsc.page=1
May 6, 2013 at 1:02 am
LindseyD
Participant
We have tea occasionally. My dd loves tea parties, and I enjoy them with adults but I’m learning to enjoy them with children. 😉 I do like “fancy” things: I enjoy dressing up, wearing heels, collecting china, nice table linens. That’s just me though. For dd’s Christmas, we started a collection for her of nice dishes, including a tea pot, creamer, sugar, and four teacups with saucers. We plan to add cake stands, plates, the pitcher, and other pieces as she grows so that when she has a home of her own she will have the things she needs for entertaining or hosting. If you’re interested in what her set is, go to Amazon and search Pip Studio. It’s super cute stuff!
We like peppermint tea: just dried peppermint leaves steeped in water, so there’s no caffeine. Sometimes we might add dried lavender or rose hips. Ds and I don’t take milk or cream in our tea, but dd does. And we all use stevia or honey to sweeten. Sometimes we will have some grain-free cookies (if I already have them made; I rarely make special cookies just for tea), but usually it’s just the tea. We don’t read anything special, usually whatever book we happen to be in at the time. I find that the actual sitting and having tea is the easy part; getting myself worked up and excited to do it with the kids and giving myself the time to sit and just have tea is the hard part. 😉
May 9, 2013 at 9:47 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
Thank you for the great ideas and setting my mind at ease, giving me the confidence to have our first tea party.
I got out my nice tablecloth which I never had used yet. I’ll be watching out for a tea kettle. We made due with a pot of boiling water and a laddle with coffee cups and herbal tea. Certainly not fancy. My dd6 also had dad, brother, and grandparents for it. I made some sandwiches and also served apples and pretzels. We played classical music in the background. She chose a poem to read by AA Milne and I read a short story called Please from the Children’s Book of Virtues. We had a nice visit together and I enjoyed it! I look forward to the next one, fancy or not.
May 10, 2013 at 2:02 am
blue j
Participant
W2f, that sounds awesome! So glad your first tea part worked out well!
If you want to be creative and do a firends party or one with just your kiddos, try making cream cheese & jam sandwiches and use small cookie cutters to make finger sandwiches, apples with cheese cut in fun shapes or peanut butter & yogurt dip, and herbal tea. It’s easy, it can be used for a real meal depending upon how much you need – so a lunch time tea works well.
Here is a fun little tea pot that is on Amazon. Here’s another. Here is a fun set – pot, sugar, creamer, and cups. And maybe for a birthday or other gift, you might consider something like this grey & yellow set, this polka dot set, or this polka dot set. The first two make me think of Alice in Wonderland, and the last one has a print that is fun much like the second set.
Enjoy!
May 10, 2013 at 5:49 am
Wings2fly
Participant
Wow. There are so many options. Since I am so new to this, I have another question. Would all teapots be used directly on the stovetop to warm the water, or would you need to pour hot water into some?
May 10, 2013 at 8:48 pm
blue j
Participant
The teapots I linked are ones in which you would add the water. If I understand correctly, after you’ve heated your water on the stove, you sould warm your teapot with a bit of water, and then dump that bit which has cooled as the pot itself warmed. Then add a bit of water and the teabag(s)/infuser and allow to steep for your desired tea strength, then fill the pot totally up. Sometimes we do this, and sometimes we just add it all at once and go from there.

May 11, 2013 at 1:51 am
Kristen
Participant
I just purchased this book that I think would go well with tea parties for young girls. It is called “Lady in Waiting for Little Girls” by Jackie Kendall.
I do simple tea parties occasionally and we read a poem or something not in our normal routine. I make them honey tea in the winter or lemonade in the summer and we use little tea sets that my Mom gave as gifts one year. They love it and even the boys join in.
February 25, 2014 at 7:37 pm
Wings2fly
Participant
While we have had a few tea parties, I know we need to have more. I came across this article on Brave Writer (HS Buyers Co op has it on sale now) and thought it would add to this discussion. My goal now is monthly Poetry Teatimes, nothing too fancy.
http://www.bravewriter.com/bwl/poetry-teatimes/
February 25, 2014 at 7:44 pm
curlywhirly
Participant
Another book for tea time reading would be Gods Wisdom for Little Girls http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Wisdom-Little-Girls-Proverbs/dp/0736904271 my DDalmost 6 loves it.