One thing my family looks forward to at the end of a long week of homeschool is our Friday morning tea times. It’s the perfect way to cap off a hard week of trying, struggling, encouraging, focusing, refocusing, praying (or cursing) under my breath, repeating, repeating, repeating.
On Friday mornings, we begin by getting our Right Start Math lesson out of the way. If I’m really organized and following my own advice, I have oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough in my fridge that my daughter and I mixed up the day before, while my son was at his drop-off music class. I plop some cookies onto a cookie sheet with parchment paper (so I don’t have to clean later) and put them into the oven to bake while we finish math. The promise of fresh-baked cookies is a great motivator to get through that last math lesson of the week. But life is busy and I am a mere mortal, so more often than not, nothing is freshly baked.
After math is done, my daughter and I set the table for tea time. We use the fancy blue and white dishes that I have been collecting at thrift stores for years, a tablecloth or placemats, candles, and a tea pot. We plate the freshly baked cookies or (more realistically) pull some Oreos or Graham crackers from the pantry to set nicely on serving plates. We cut up some fruit, prepare a bowl of yogurt, or make some toast. We put on the kettle to make a small pot of tea. And since my son won’t drink tea, we get him a nutritional chocolate shake to pour into his teacup.
As an aside, I am obsessed with this little teapot I got from Amazon. It’s pretty, just the right size for 2-3 cups of tea, and it has a tea strainer inside for looseleaf tea. I also love double espresso mugs for my children’s tea and chocolate milk – the double espresso cup size is perfect for little hands. While I collected the plates and bowls from thrift stores, if you want a similar look right now, you could check out these bowls and/or these plates on Amazon.
After setting the table (with candles of course), I gather up our Friday books and things: a children’s Bible (I am partial to Desmond Tutu’s Children of God storybook bible and Elizabeth F. Caldwell and Carol A. Wehrheim’s Growing in God’s Love story bible because of their diverse illustrations and progressive theology); our chapter book read-aloud (my kids are really enjoying the Tomie DePaolo autobiographical series about the famed author’s childhood); a book about our bodies, how they work, and how to take care of them; a poem from a book of poetry; a short chapter from our book of nature stories; a few pages from a book about an artist; and a new picture to look at by the artist we are studying.
We light candles and eat our treats, practice our table manners, and I read small portions from our different books. I then ask the kids to tell me back in their own words what we read about and we have a family conversation over tea about our school week.
After tea time, the kids get time for free play before we head out for our weekly nature walk, followed by swimming lessons and then takeout for supper on Friday nights.
A lovely way to end the week.
Of course my house looks like a bomb went off – Fridays are so busy there’s very little time to clean, but what’s a little mess for a lot of memories?
-Heather
Ps: To my readers, this post contains Amazon affiliate links. It’s just a small way you can support me, if you’re inspired by what you’ve read. I am so grateful for your readership!
Rinkydink Mum 