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We covered a unit in The Story of the World this week on Japanese Warlords. The Projects section at the end of the chapter contained the following cooking project: Hold a Japanese Tea Ceremony. I will be the first to admit that I’m not a Konos-style teacher; in other words, I’m not good at implementing elaborate “extras” to illustrate the things we study. My daughters, however, took the idea of the Japanese Tea and ran with it. My nine-year-old immediately called her daddy at work to make sure he would be free Saturday afternoon.

First we were served a tray of popcorn and apples.

Next came the tea. I got a hot mug of Blackcurrant, a favorite.

My husband doesn’t really like flavored hot teas, but he was a good sport.

While we waited for the main course, we had snack bars, or as my three-year-old daughter says, “K bars” (Special K bars).

We were also served salad, nuts, oranges, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and entertained by both dancing and the singing of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

I was even briefly crowned.

This experience really illustrated the W. B. Yeats quote for me: “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.”