Magic Monday – Mad Hatter’s Zooming Tea Party
Zippedy Zoom, zoomers and how zippy was your weekend? Did you enjoy your own zooming Sea Party and Scavenger Hunt, I know we Boffins in the lab did. We had a Zipping time, although I never, ever did find those biscuits, the other Boffs said they just couldn’t find them. Although, I did see lots of crumbles in my magnifugel glass, it’s a totally mystery…
This week we have a zipping trip for you all into Wonderland and here to tell you what the Zip is going on, is the Mad Hatter!
So its ‘Host Your Own Virtual Tea Party’ Week with the Mad Hatter.
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What to do?
- Decide what date you want to have your Tea Party
- Decide what video platform you will use (e.g Zoom, Skype etc)
- Decide who you want to invite to your Tea Party and make a list.
- Decide what your guests should wear and make e.g A Mad Hat, and a mug of Tea!
- Make your own invitation
- Send it out.
All you need to make your own invitations are paper and some pens or pencils. Here are some tips to help your invitations look amazing!
Writing invitations are a grand opportunity to use verrrry fancy-schmancy language.
Instead of saying “you are invited” why not say “you are cordially invited”. Instead of saying “please come to my party” you could say “I would be delighted to have the pleasure of your company at my humble soiree”.
This will make you sound really clever and fancy.
Make sure that the date and time on your invitation is written really clearly so there’s no mistake, and your guests won’t be late, like the White Rabbit!
Why not cut your invitation into a fun shape. Maybe a top hat, or a teacup, or a balloon?
Use lots of bright colours to decorate. If the invitation looks fun, then the party will be even more fun!
You could illustrate your invitation with cool pictures, like slices of cake and cups of tea, so your guests know they’re in for a delicious time.
If you sign your name at the end, make sure that your signature is a big scribble with lots of loops and squiggles in it. This always looks very grand!
The Mad Hatter loves to paint as well as make tea. so here is one of his favourite things to do ‘Hand Painting Animals’. Your crazy creatures can join the Mad Hatter on more Wonderland Adventures.
Mad Hatter’s Top Tips for Hand Painting
🎨 Choose your ‘Painting Place’ This is very messy and lots of squelchy fun. If you can and its a lovely day you could do it in the garden. If you are indoors, pick a space that you can cover with old paper, plastic, or even big bags, so when you are finished, there isn’t paint all over the place.
🎨 Grab your kit before your hands get covered in paint. Paints into handsize tubs or plates – old yogurt pots are a great way of storing paint. Paintbrushes or old sponges to apply the paint with, or you can just dab your hands into the paint COOL! Old towel, and a wet cloth. Paper to paint on and a bowl of warm soapy water so you can wash your hands in-between colours.
🎨 Wear old clothes or an apron. This is MESSY
❤ STEP 1: Once you have got everything ready and are dressed suitably, either dip your hand or foot into some paint or use a sponge or paintbrush to coat your hand in the colour of your choice!
🧡 STEP 2: Carefully place your hand or foot onto the paper and hold it in place for 5 seconds.
💛 STEP 3: Carefully lift your hand or foot up and your print should be perfectly in place.
💚 STEP 4: Repeat as many times as you’d like.
💙 STEP 5: Once the paint has dried, you can go around with a thin paintbrush and turn your hand painting into animals or wonderland creatures like the ones below.
💜 STEP 6: When you are happy with your masterpiece, hang it up to dry before framing it or sticking it to your fridge!
💗 STEP 7: Wash, wash, wash those hands and feet!
Whilst you’re at it, you can make your own PLACEMATS as well for your tea party. Make enough placemats so that every guest can have one. An A4 piece of paper is the perfect size for a placemat, so there’s no need to cut it up.
You can decorate your placemat with any picture that you like. You could make a crazy cool pattern! It might be a good idea to paint food on it, such as some apples or lemons, or different squiggly shapes of pasta. You could also add a patterned border all around the edges of the mat. Get creative!
Silly Sandwiches!
The Mad Hatter just loooves to cut his sandwiches into wacky shapes for a tea party, here’s how you can too!
KIT LIST
- Bread
- Butter
- Any filling (we used raspberry jam!)
- Cookie cutters (in any funky shape you like)
What did the hedgehog say to the flamingo?
Flamin-stop!
What does the White Rabbit eat at Easter time?
Choco-LATE!
What did one hat say to the other?
“You stay here, I’ll go on a head!”
What is the March Hare’s motto?
Don’t worry, be hoppy!
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Zip Zip, we Boffins have got paint everywhere and now the lab is a ripping rainbow of colour. While we get on and put away, have a go at our Wonderland Word search!
Nonsense Corner!
Lewis Carroll is the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Carroll used to write a load of nonsense and make it into books and poems. Nonsense, I hear you say? That’s not very nice!
No Zoomers, I know it sounds awfully silly, but actually ‘nonsense’ is a whole form of literature. It means that the writing deliberately doesn’t make any sense.
Lewis Carroll used to make up words all the time in his poems, which would sound really strange and funny. One of his most famous poems is ‘The Jabberwocky’ which is about a horrible monster who gets defeated by a young boy.
Here are some of the first lines:
“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe”
Doesn’t make much sense, does it? Try defining these words yourself. For instance, what do you think “brillig” means? It could mean a time of day, or it could refer to the weather, or a place, or anything at all.
Edward Lear was another famous nonsense writer. He wrote hundreds and hundreds of poems, including ‘The Jumblies’ and ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’. Here is some of ‘The Jumblies’ .
“Far and few, far and few Are the lands where the Jumblies live. Their heads are green, and their hands are blue And they went to sea in a sieve.”
What do you think the Jumblies look like, apart from their blue hands and green heads? Why not try drawing them? The wonderful thing about nonsense is that there are no rules at all, so the Jabberwocky or the Jumblie in one person’s head might look completely different to the Jabberwocky or the Jumblie in another’s…
Here’s a reading of ‘The Jumblies’, to delight your very earholes! Do you think they are brave or silly to set sail in a sieve?
Fruit Salad!
This is a loopy game to be played in a group!
- Form a circle of chairs, with one fewer chair than the number of players.
- One player goes ‘in’, and stands in the middle of the circle.
- Divide all the players into categories of fruit, by going around the circle and naming each person either an apple, an orange, or a banana.
- All the players sit in a seat, and the person who is ‘in’ shouts either “apples” “oranges” or “bananas”. Whichever one they shout, all the players who are in that category must jump up and switch seats.
- The person who is in then must quickly find a seat and sit down. There will be one person left without a seat, and they are now ‘in’.
- The person in the middle can also shout ‘fruit salad!” and this means all the players must switch seats.
Well know that is all of the lab all white and bright, and now the Boffins have gone to make some tea, yippedy dee, I love my tea.
So Zoomers time for me to sign off as the Hatter is filling the lab with Hats and creatures, again, oh dear, I think he has lost the teapot with the Dormouse in it, again. Zippedilla to the rescue.
Come back on Wacky Wednesday for a load more zippingly wonderboffinly crackadoodle fun!
🌞🖌ZIP, ZOOM, GO 🖌🌞
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