When planning our home preschool themes I try choose a theme that will allow us to focus on a wide variety of skills that both the toddlers and the preschoolers will benefit from and enjoy. Because of the skills we are working on this year with each group of kids, we are not learning the alphabet in order. One of the themes we enjoyed exploring this year was T is for Tea Time. We used tea in a variety of ways to practice life skills, art, science, math and literacy.
This pouring tea activity was a life skill activity mainly focused on the toddlers, but the preschoolers enjoyed it a lot, too.
We found some great tea sets at a thrift store for $1 an item. I filled the tea pots with water. Since we were playing inside I put all of the items inside a large plastic bin. You could also do this activity outside without a bin. Tinker is still in the pouring until it overflows stage, so I knew we’d need something to catch the extra water.
Tinker spent a lot of time pouring the water back and forth between the teapot and the teacups. She enjoyed the activity so much that we set it out a few different times throughout our tea time theme, and she has continued to ask for it a few times since then.
The preschoolers also wanted to participate. They took turns passing the larger teapot back and forth. Each time the added a little water to the teacup trying not to spill any. You can see this was a bit suspenseful for them. Ultimately they even made it into a little game where the person who poured the last of the water was the winner.
Clean and simple fun!
Up next in our T is for Tea Time series we’ll be sharing one of the ways we practiced some tea time math.
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Agnes
Hi, how many cups do the kids actually break? Pls give me some encouragement. Mine has broken 2 cups and I am starting to doubt if I should continue training her with glass cups or go back to plastic cups.
Also, she does not pour slowly and carefully. She is very rushed in pouring, thus most water spill out of the flask, not into the cup.
Thanks!
Shaunna Evans
Awww, I’m sorry to hear that. How old is your little one? We didn’t actually break any cups in the process. Is she sitting on the floor or at a table? We sat on the floor to avoid breaking them from dropping.
When you introduce the activity can you remind her that these cups are delicate and we have to move slowly and carefully? Make it a game to see if she can’t get all the water in the cup. We did still have a lot of overflow, but that’s okay. That’s why we put the materials in the plastic bin to catch the water. Understanding when to stop pouring is part of the learning process, but I don’t want her to hurt herself with the cups.
If she’s not quite ready, then you can certainly use a plastic set.