National Hot Tea Month and Pie Day Activities

Let's start the New Year off right with little comfort food reminders!  January is usually a very  L O N G month to find ideas for. You have Winter and Martin Luther King Day, so it is nice to fill in the gap with other activities that go with January.  January is known as National Hot Tea Month and Pie Day is January 23th. 
OT to Go just published a great book called One Lump or Two--An Early Education Tea Party Book.  Before anyone thinks tea parties are just for girls--having children prepare crafts or snacks that they enjoy doing and eating is for EVERYONE!  Having a tea party teaches the children social graces as well as ADL skills of setting the table, preparing a meal or snack, serving the food, cleaning up, and manners during the meal.  The book has many theme related place mats to color, napkin rings for various levels of cutting skills and many many simple recipes that relate to the theme. Go to our publishing list to see this great book!

Our Pie craft is a mini potpourri pie, that will provide the room with fragrance or serve as a centerpiece for the table.

Potpourri Pie



Materials Needed

Bag of Potpourri  (On the after Christmas Sales right now)
small aluminum pie tin
tacky glue
marker
scissor
beige or yellow burlap or felt
rick rack.

Directions

1. Draw a circle with the marker on the felt or burlap. Make the circle just slightly larger than the circumference of the pie tin lip. This will become the "top crust" of our pie.
2.  Cut the circle out. Designs or slips can be cut into the "top crust"
3.  Fill the pie tin with Potpourri.
4.  Run tacky glue along ridge of pie plate and place burlap circle on top as the top "crust". Let dry.
5.  Run a line of tacky glue around the edge of the burlap or felt and attach the rickrack to look like the fluted edge of the crust.  Let dry.
6.  The top of the pie can be decorated with small fake berries or leaves to enhance the look of the pie.

*  Another way to do the crust is to cut strips of the felt or burlap and "weave" them across the pie in a lattice work pattern.  Cut off any material that is over the edges of the pie tin and secure with glue.

This craft is a very multi-sensory one since the potpourri has both a feel and a smell.  The burlap and felt can be rough and smooth textures. A great bilateral control craft idea!!!

Hot Tea Month Place Mats


Materials Needed

Construction Paper
Pictures of tea cups, tea bags, tea products cut from magazines and grocery ads
The tags off teabags, or the individual wrappers off tea bags
Glue
Markers

Directions:

1.  Draw a large tea cup or teapot on the construction paper.
2.  Cover the inside of the tea cup/pot drawing with glue.
3.  Collage the area with the pictures, tags and wrappers collected, making sure they stay within the perimeter of the tea cup/pot.  Let dry.
4. Laminate the place mat, and use.

This craft is great for reinforcing cutting skills and for position in space skills, as the child tries to "fit" their pictures into a given space. It can become very tactile if you make them use their fingers to apply the glue.