Herbal tea party

What better way to spend a beautiful spring morning than inviting your favourite toys to a tea party. Even better when the tea is made with items found in the garden.

                                                           

Who can play?

This activity is aimed for children aged three years plus, however children as young as two could enjoy this, but you would have to observe closely so they do not try to eat/drink the tea.

Safety:

Ensure that the plants your child is collecting are safe. Demonstrate how to pretend drink the tea and encourage children not to drink it, as this could cause tummy upsets.

If your child has pollen allergies this activity may trigger this.

What do you need?

• Your child's favourite cuddly  toys
• Picnic blanket
• Tea set
• Grass, flowers and other safe found objects in the garden
• Water
• Jug

What did we do?

To encourage writing skills, we wrote an invitation to Bee's  favourite toys, Big T, Mummy's bear and Ariel (from the Little Mermaid) inviting them to our tea party.

Once our invitation was accepted we set out the picnic blanket and sat the toys on top of it. Then we placed a jug of water and the tea set on the path.

Our next job was to go on a hunt for the perfect ingredients. Bee found some rose petals, leaves and...

... fresh rosemary. Bee loved smelling this and said "this will make my tea smell lovely"

We added the items to the jug of water and found a stick to stir it.

                                                   

Once Bee was happy with her herbal tea, she began pouring it into the tea cups. Most ended up on the pavement, but this was OK as she was practicing her hand eye coordination and spacial awareness skills.

 Mmmm, it is looking yummy!

Bee then began giving each of her toys a cup of her fresh herbal tea as well as a plate of grass.

Bee was getting really into this activity now and said that she wanted to make some soup. Adding some bowls and a ladle to her play, she began collecting more rose petals, grass, stones, pine cones and shells and made a delicious batch of 'Garden soup' as she called it.

When it was ready, she served up this delightful meal to her cuddly toys... By the look of Ariel, I think she may have had enough :-) She asked them did they like her soup and pretended to feed them all.

After a while Bee asked if she could use her chop sticks (that we brought home from a recent restaurant visit) This was a great addition to the activity as she practiced her fine manipulative skills, by trying to pick up the rose petals with her chop sticks and transferred them from one dish to the other.

Bee seemed to really enjoy this activity and stayed on task for a whole morning!

What did we learn?

• Communication and language- Talking to her soft toys and asking them questions.
• Physical development- Fine and large manipulative skills and hand eye coordination
• Personal, social and emotional- Making relationships, social skills, developing self competence, fun and enjoyment and being resourceful.
• Literacy- Learning how to write
• Mathematics-  Developing an awareness of space and measurement, when filling up the cups.
• Understanding of the world- Learning about  the world around them
• Expressive arts and design- Role play and  developing her own activities.

What could be done next?

• Make a cafe area to pretend to sell your home made tea and soup.
• Introduce glue and paper, so that you could make a collage with the flowers, grass etc
• Sing the song 'I'm a little tea pot'