How to have a Tea Party at home
My parents bought my daughter and niece a tea party set for their very first Christmas. At the time they were both under 9 months old. The girls are a month apart and no, my sister and I did not plan this. I’ll just say that God is awesome! You may be thinking to yourself that seems a little young to play with those kinds of toys. Well I’m here to say that the tea party set was her favorite gift that Christmas! The earlier you teach your kids how to pretend play and encourage them to use their imagination, the more their sweet little minds will grow and learn. Even now, over four years later, my daughter still loves to have tea parties with my husband and I and her stuffed animal friends. Now our younger daughter joins in on the fun!
Having a whole day themed around a tea party looked a little different from the other days we’ve celebrated so far (see right sidebar). We spent the majority of the morning making snacks and preparing for our tea party that was planned in the afternoon after my daughter woke up from her nap. Well, that was the plan anyway. For those of you that have toddlers or know a toddler, you know that things don’t always go as planned. 🙂 Toddlers often have their own agenda, no matter how convincing you think you are. So we ended up breaking our tea party day into a tea party weekend. I know I’m talking a lot about my toddler so far. This is because at the time of writing this, she was two. But really this post is relevant for toddlers through age 12 and I keep updating it to include ideas for older girls. Keep reading to find out ideas on how to have a tea party day at home!
Below is a basic and detailed schedule of what we did so you can follow along. Click here to print
*This post may contain affiliate links to products. Using these links, I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. For more information, click here.
*I do my best to share ideas of ways to make things homemade to save money, but I also include links to give you even more ideas. My suggestions would also make great gifts for the Holidays. *wink, wink
What did we Do?
Decorate headgear:
- Design a hat: I bought a plain hat from the Dollar Tree. We added flowers, rhinestones, pom poms and a feather. My daughter told me where to put the decorations and I used a hot glue gun to attach them. This only cost me $3 because I had most of the supplies already at home!
- Make a crown out of beads and pipe cleaners
These are the beads we have: Skoolzy Preschool Lacing Beads
Make necklaces/bracelets: We used the same lacing beads kit from Skoolzy shown above. Since my daughter was two at the time of making this post, this is the simple necklace we made because the beads are larger. *The older the kids, the smaller and more intricate beads you can use and make patterns. Here a few suggestions:
ages 3-8
ages 4-8
ages 7-12+
I introduced an AB pattern trying to get my daughter to copy the pattern. In case you aren’t familiar with what I’m talking about, an AB pattern is a simple pattern with two colors. For example, red/blue, red/blue or green/orange, green/orange. My daughter was a tad young for this developmentally (kids typically will be able to copy an AB pattern at ages 3.5-4) but it is never too early to start introducing concepts like this to your child.
Get fancy: Paint finger/toenails, put on Chapstick (Chapstick is my daughter’s favorite!) and wear dress up clothes. My daughter is sometimes into playing dress-up and sometimes not. It has to be her idea. Does this sound familiar!? As mentioned earlier, we split tea party day into two days so for half a day she wore a bumblebee costume from Halloween the year before. The second day so wore a fancy dress.
Make paper fans: This activity will be fine for older kids but a bit more difficult for toddlers. To make my daughter feel more involved I let her reinforce the fold on the creases. If you want a print out of these detailed instructions, click here.
Color:
Play a game: Spoon race with sugar cubes. Place sugar cube on a spoon then have your child complete an obstacle course. I made the obstacle course extremely easy since my daughter was two at the time. Balancing the sugar cube and avoiding obstacles will be difficult for most toddlers. So for my daughter’s obstacle course I only had her walk around an object in the middle of the floor which happened to be her play shopping cart. I bought Ice Breakers Ice Cube gum because I am more likely to use it in the future than the sugar cubes. For older kids you can make the obstacle course more challenging such as having them crawl over or under things and maneuver around multiple objects.
- More fun games:
Pretty Pretty Princess
Guess Who? (Princess edition)
Treats & Sweets Party Board Game
Sing: “I’m a Little Teapot”
- Make this song into a game by pausing the song and having your child freeze in the position he/she was in. Resume moving or dancing whenever the singer starts again.
- Click here to print a fun and cute printable for this song
Stickers: I bought princess stickers from the Dollar Tree that happened to be tea party themed. My daughter loves stickers and they are GREAT for practicing fine motor coordination and control.
Here are some cute ones I found on Amazon because the Dollar Tree always changes their stock:
Temporary Tattoos are also fun!
Play Make Believe and get Creative:
Dress up in tea party clothes or like a princess and use your imagination to build a castle, dress up magnetic dolls, or decorate your own mirror.
Make a sun catcher:
- Click here for detailed instructions on how to make your own. *These make great homemade gifts! However, note that they take roughly 48 hours to fully dry.
Make Diamond Art Coasters:
- *The majority of this post was written when my daughter was two years old. However, this section was added when she turned 4.
Have a TEA PARTY: We finally had our tea party in my daughter’s room. She doesn’t get to eat in her room so this was a special treat. Make believe with stuffed animal friends so they can join in on the fun and your child can use his/her imagination! Invite friends over for even more fun!
Developmental Skills Targeted:
- Cognitive Development: problem solving, sustained attention, alternating attention, response inhibition, cognitive flexibility
- Social and Emotional Development: listens and follows directions, asks for help when needed
- Speech and Language Development: expressive and receptive language
- Fine Motor Skill Development: Pencil skills (scribbling, coloring, drawing, writing, hand dexterity- balancing object on spoon), Play (construction), Self-Care (Chapstick, putting on hat/crown/necklace)
- Gross Motor Skill Development: Locomotor skills (running, jumping)
- Motor planning and coordination
What did we eat?
For lunch:
- Ham and cheese AND/OR peanut butter and jelly tea sandwiches
- Triangle shaped watermelon (I chose to cut them like this because they look fancier in my opinion) and various other fruit
- A life-tip from my daughter regarding the stems and leaves on strawberries: “Don’t eat the grass!”
For the tea party (My daughter loved working in the kitchen making all these treats!):
- “Mini” Funfetti cupcakes with pink sprinkles because my daughter loves all things “whittle”
- Chocolate milk instead of tea (we used a sippy cup still because although I’m all about exploration and making messes, set your kiddo up for success. If he/she isn’t ready for a fancy tea party cup with actual liquid just yet, then only pretend to use those cups.)
- Homemade butter mints: Get the recipe here
- Goldfish! Because it obviously isn’t a party without goldfish according to my daughter.
There are many adorable ideas in this Pink Princess Tea Parties book by Barbara Beery.
- We also incorporated her play food tea party set
Print these adorable food labels here.
If you are hosting a tea party for multiple kids, like a birthday party, here are fun cups the kids can color and then eat or drink from.
Ideas of what to read:
- Here is a list of other good tea party reads
Ideas of what to watch:
Kids:
- Alice and Wonderland
- Beauty & The Beast
- Youtube “Tea Parties” there are several options but I really like this one from Rock ‘N Learn
Teens (one of my teenage favorites):
- The Princess Diaries
Adults (maybe after the kiddos go to bed):
- The Great Gatsby
- Downton Abbey
What to wear:
- Dress up in anything your child wants! Like I said earlier, we had to break this day into two. One day she wore a bumblebee costume and the second day she wore a “fancier” dress.
- Wear the tea party hat or crown like we decorated earlier in this post! See above in the “What did we do?” section for specifics.
- I looked for “fancy gloves” at the Dollar Tree but couldn’t find any. Here are a couple that are really cute from Amazon:
If you don’t already have clothes to wear for your tea party at home, here are some ideas to get you started:
I’d love to hear about the tea party day you had at home. I hope you made some great memories with your family! Put your comments in the section below, tag me on social media, or contact via email from the Contact Me page.
Love, love, love this!! I loved having tea parties with my girls and now I am blessed to have tea parties with my granddaughters! Make wonderful memories and have a tea party with your children/grandchildren!