This coming weekend we will be having our annual Little Flowers Girls’ Club Mother-Daughter Tea Party! Having completed all four wreaths last year, I did take this year off from coordinating and hosting Little Flowers for my girls, but we’ve decided that we still wanted to have the tea party. A dear friend of mine, whose daughters were/are in the older Little Flowers group, has generously offered to host our tea this year at her home, using all the decorations from her daughter’s groups annual tea party the day before!!! This simplifies things incredibly for me! I’ve already sent the invitations and assigned the food to the various girls (and Mothers) who will be attending and my girls will be wearing their Easter dresses, hats and gloves. So that just leaves me with the games, prizes, and favors to plan.
I’ve spent some time this afternoon looking though all the games we have played in the past and thought I’d round them all up into one post. At our tea parties we always take a short break to play a game or two in between each course, while the servers refill the trays for the next course. This year we will be having a four-course tea so I need to decide on 3-4 games. If the weather is nice we might be having a maypole this year, which would take care of one of the games. Here’s what we’ve playing in the past:
Would you all help me decide? This year we will have a group of about 13 girls ranging in age from 6-13, along with 6 mothers. It would be great to include a new game or two, so if you have any suggestions or ideas for me I’d love for you to leave them in the comment box!
LOVE THE GAMES!!! I don't have any suggestions for ya, but we will be stealing lots of your ideas! B-)
We used the foam shapes at the dollar store and made a game where people have to help each other find a three way match, of virtue, saint and verse. The girls made them by writing the verse on a flowershape, the saint on a crown and the virtue on a cross. Then we placed them around the room and the girls went around finding matches, both by looking for hidden shapes and by asking friends if they had a match. The game was over when all matches were found or when a time limit was reached. This was great because it kept them from trying to finish first since they all had to help each other in order to "win". They were allowed to use their books to figure out the tough ones. No one was left out or felt that they weren't good at it because the ones that are fast at finding the shapes sometimes needed help figuring it out from the ones that were taking their time looking in the book. Our girls loved it.
What a great idea! Thank you so much for sharing! Some of the girls who are coming this year will be attending for the first time, but perhaps with the books and the help of the other girls they could still play a game like this. Thanks again!
How cute! I looked up a few Victorian parlor games, and how about creating a variant on one of these?
Charades http://www.scholastic.com/titles/abbyhayes/brainwaves/charades.htm
This is a classic Victorian game with which most people are quite familiar. In its modern form, charades is a game where one player acts out a word or phrase, or sometimes a movie title, by miming similar-sounding words. The other players must guess the word or phrase. The goal is to use physical rather than spoken words to convey the meaning to other players.
The Name Game http://oldfashionedliving.com/parlour-games.html
Provide each guest with 10 small pieces of paper, and a pen or pencil. Ask them to write down the names of 10 famous people, leaders, movie stars, authors, sports figures, politicians, artists, inventors, scientists, etc. Encourage them not to make it too easy! Fold the papers, and put them into a hat, bowl, or basket. Seat guests in a large circle. Each round is limited to 30 seconds, so have a watch with a second hand available. Player One pulls out a name, and tries to get the person beside him/her to guess the name by giving clues, but never actually saying the name or what it starts with. Gestures are not allowed. After the name is guessed, the clue-giver can continue pulling names out of the hat until their time is up. The guesser gets to keep their pieces of paper, and the clue-giver gets credit also. The bowl is the passed to the next person and the clue-giver now becomes the guesser and there is a new-clue giver. The bowl proceeds around the circle until everyone has guessed and everyone has given clues. The one with the most correct guesses wins.
Example: Name – Abraham Lincoln Clues: He lived in a log cabin. He was president during the Civil War. His wife's name was Mary Todd. He wore a stove pipe hat and had a beard. He was assasinated by John Wilkes Booth.
"GRACES":http://victorian.world.sw.tripod.com/id4.html
Graces is a game that dates back to the 1830s. It was originally intended as an indoor parlour game, but could be played outdoors as well, and due to its popularity, it often was. It was a two-player game which used two wooden throwing rings, (usually decorated with ribbons), and four catching wands. Each player held two catching wands, one in each hand. The first player would place the rings over the wands which he/she held, then toss the rings, one at a time, to the other player. The winner was the player who had caught the most tossed rings within a set amount of time. It was generally considered a "girl's game" as it was meant to encourage gracefulness–hence, the name, "Graces".
We have a local game here in the Philippines called PINOY HENYO.
Basically, a person will sit in front of the group with a paper placed on his/her forehead or above his/her head (as long as the person can't see it) or if you have a chalkboard or whiteboard you can place it behind the person and write a name/word to be guessed above his head (or if you prefer the paper version, the paper should have the name(of a saint example) or an object, place, etc. That person will ask questions to the audience/group about the word above his head, answerable only by YES, NO, or MAYBE. You can time it for individual scores or in groups.
For example:
The word to be guessed by the person / word above his head is :
POPE FRANCIS
Person: Is this word an Object?
Audience: NO!
Person: A Person?
Audience: YES!
Person: Someone famous?
Audience: Yes!
Person: A Politician?
Audience: NO!
Person: Celebrity?
Audience: NO! Or… Maybe! 🙂
Person: Someone who is Catholic?
Audience: YESSSSSSS!
Person: Is it POPE FRANCIS?
Audience: *cheers* *claps*
1 Point to that person/group.
Easy, right?
You can play with words, and it works best if the Person can name categories first, as some words may be difficult to express. Challenging words may take
a while so you may set limits like 1 minute only per person.
The game can also be themed, like for example all about Easter, or Catholics, or Literature. The Possibilities are endless.
P.S. If you search PINOY HENYO on youtube, there are lots of videos showing how people play it. This game may be similar or a combination of other games, and in our country,it is a lot of fun! Lots of people play this during parties, events, and it is named and started by a local TV show.:)
God Bless to your family!
Avid reader from the Philippines.
Ana
A couple of ideas. Pass the parcel — an English game that is so fun!
http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Pass-the-Parcel. Many ways to vary this game, and the gift, if you want to make it religious, could be a simple medal or a holy card (or even a package of holy cards and the winner has to give one to each child, so everyone gets something). Another religious one would be a variation on a matching game, but take it to the next level — like copy pictures of things like each individual act of mercy and see if they kids can name them. For another outdoor game, you can do a scavenger hunt — kids always seem to love this! Clues that take you to the next clue, etc. You can divide into two teams instead of doing it individually. Have fun!
a fun tea party game is toss the sugar cube. Set out 4 tea cups lined up. Put point values for the cups, closest get 5 points, second gets 10 etc. Then have the girls stand at a line and toss the sugar cubes and try to get them in the cups. the one with the highest points wins. If there is a tie do a toss off. My girls love it.
We played a game on the basis like "The Newlywed Game". Except it is called "How well do you know your Mother/Daughter? Is a lot of fun. You ask 5 questions about each. They are separated and write their answers on paper. Answers are 5 points each w last question being worth 10 points. The one mother who scores the highest points wins and the daughter who scores the highest points wins a prize. We do prize for mother and one for daughters.
Hi there I want to play the tea party bingo for our mother daughter tea tomorrow and the pdf you attached with it says preview is not available and I can't seem to find it on the website you also had attached. Is there a way you could just email it to me so I can print it off??? Please and thank you!!!
It's a file I downloaded from another website, but I just did a google search and found it again here:
http://www.theteahousetimes.com/members/theteahousetimes/files/download+public/Tea_Party_BINGO.pdf
Hope that helps and that you have a wonderful tea party!