How to Have a Healthy and Courteous Back-to-School Tea Party

We’ve had so much fun with tea parties ever since my 3¾-year-old granddaughter was a toddler. Last year, we had a first-day-of school tea party when Zoey started attending a Montessori school half days. Zoey started her second year of Montessori school this week, so we had a back-to-school tea party.

A back-to-school tea party doesn’t have to be done the first day or even the first week of school. You could do it any time during the first month back to school.

We always like our tea parties to be healthy and to encourage courteous behavior. This one focused on healthy foods and courteous behavior along with our second beginning-of-the-school-year interview.

How to Have a Healthy and Courteous Back-to-School Tea Party – YouTube Video

In this 2 minute, 9-second video, my daughter, Christina, and Zoey (Christina’s niece) have lots of fun with their back-to-school tea party. Zoey is too cute! I love her comments and tea-party conversation.

Following are our menu, items used, and the grace and courtesy lessons we emphasized.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).

Our Menu for a Back-to-School Tea Party

• Blueberries
• Mini Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins with healthy dark chocolate that was refrigerated and then cut into chunks (super-healthy and yummy muffins made using mini muffin pans and mini muffin cups)
• Warm Peppermint Tea made with hot water and peppermint tea bags (cooled to a safe temperature). Sometimes we make fresh mint tea, but we used tea bags for our tea party because of all the preparations that needed to be made.

Items for a Back-to-School Tea Party

Back-to-School Tea Party Setup

• Ceramic Tea Set with Basket (I chose this set because it has a pretty basket and settings for 4 … many are only settings for 2. If you get this set, be sure to save the plastic inserts if you want to store your tea set in it. I put the inserts back in the basket {just cut the tall part down to fit easily} to safely store our special-occasion tea set. Unfortunately, that set isn’t as readily available, so it’s really gone up in price. You might want to check out other ceramic tea sets.)
• Child-size table and chairs
• Tablecloth
• Placemats
• Napkins
• Let’s Have a Tea Party!: Special Celebrations for Little Girls by Emilie Barnes (This is by the same Christian publisher as My Very First Tea Party. It has lots of fun ideas for themed tea parties. It’s a great reference.)
  
• Multicraft tray for food and tea set
• Flowers that Zoey helped arrange.
• Food and Tea (See menu above)
• party dress (Zoey’s is from Gymboree.)
• white gloves and hats are often used, although we didn’t use them for this tea party.
• printable for first-day-of-school interview (we chose a first-day-of school interview from Who Arted.

Our Back-to-School Tea Party

Asking if She’d Like Some Tea at the Back-to-School Tea Party

Zoey loves our tea parties, and they’re perfect ways for her to practice manners lessons. Here she’s asking Auntie Chrissy if she’d like some tea.

Pouring Tea at the Back-to-School Tea Party

Pouring tea is always great pouring practice … and manners practice!

Writing Name for the Back-to-School Interview

We started the tradition last year of having Zoey write her name and then answer interview questions. It’s so much fun to see the changes one year brings! And I love the answers preschoolers give …definitely priceless!

Grace and Courtesy Activities Used in Our Back-to-School Tea Party

We reviewed these tea-party manners:

• saying “yes, please” or “no, thank you”
• saying “thank you”
• saying “you’re welcome”
• dabbing mouth with napkin
• saying “thank you for the tea party”

Learn more about Montessori at Home or School: How to Teach Grace and Courtesy (my book for teaching grace and courtesy for ages 2-12!)

This was so much fun! I loved seeing how Zoey had grown and matured over the last year. And she was adorable as usual! 🙂

Do you have a special first-day-of-school or back-to-school tradition?

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