Not So Sweet Treats

Someone in my son's class made individual jello cups for a potluck and added the little parasol umbrellas like you'd get in a fruity cocktail. The kids were crazy for those and had their little umbrellas when they were done eating. I've seen the little parasols in the stores near the paper plates.
C.

S.,

Here's the link to the San Francisco Unified School District's Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee's Guide to Healthy School Snacks for parties, celebrations, and sharing- and two pages with specific snack info.

http://www.sfusdfood.org/pdfs/parties.pdf

http://www.sfusdfood.org/pdfs/snackform.pdf

http://www.sfusdfood.org/pdfs/snacks.pdf

Good luck!

When my boys were little I used to take blue jello in plastic cups, with little gummie fish sharks frogs etc. This all could be sugar free too.

A friend sent me this recipe for my son's 1st birthday cake. You could do cupcakes. I haven't made it yet, but she said it was delicious, as did another mom from the same playgroup. Good luck!

Whipped Cream Frosting
Makes 1 frosting for a 2 layer cake

1 (8 ounce) package cream
cheese, softened
1 cup white sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Directions
1 In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar salt and vanilla until smooth. In a small bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold into the cream cheese mixture.

Happy Birthday Vanilla Cake

1 cup white, all-purpose flour

1/2 cup oat flour

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder, divided

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup applesauce

1/2 cup apple juice concentrate

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup canola oil

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375.

2. Lightly oil an 8''-9'' square or round cake pan.

3. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flours, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and salt.

4. In a large mixing bowl, combine applesauce with 1/4 teaspoon baking powder.

5. Add apple juice concentrate, milk, oil, syrup, and vanilla to the applesauce.

6. Mix dry ingredients into wet, one half at a time.

7. Scrape batter into pan.

8. Bake 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Kabobs are always a hit. You just cut up fruit, or raw veggies, or cheese cubes and alternately skewer them. The skewers can be found at Michaels.

How about cut-up fruit

I LOVE fruit pizza!!

melon pops (also works with pineapple)
Cut the melon slices with cookie cutters and skewer on a Popsicle stick.

I made carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting for my son's preschool. Still sweet, but a little less sugar than cupcakes.

You could also try chocolate dipped strawberries.

We did the organic Popcorn, put in see through bags with bows and the kids loved it. another idea of a healthy and not so healthy mix is Green apples, cut them into 4's right before you go to class and put them in a clear bag with a bow. bring little cups of Carmel for them to dip in. This was a big hit as well. One last thing is they can create their own trail mix. Bring a bag of raisens or cranberrys/cran-cherries, nuts, m&m's or coconut flakes and the teacher can mix them together and pour them in to previously decorated coffee filters or they can decorate them the day before. Have fun!!

I made graham cracker sandwiches with cream cheese in the middle. Kids loved them!

CostCo sells 100% fruit rollups

Hi S., I have found that cookie recipes come out great when I substitute stevia for white sugar. I keep the brown sugar as called for in the recipe, but eliminate all white sugar and they always taste great. Even my husband loves them.

How about home-made granola bars? Lightly sweetened with agave, coconut, oats, crisped rice, a drizzle of chocolate on top, some dried fruit, maybe dates?

The brand Annie's makes "bunnies" in 4 "flavors. Our Costco in Danville sells a large box of individual snack size packs--cheddar, chocolate chip, honey graham, and chocolate chip. They are organic too!

One of my 7YO twin DD's requested that I bring "Apples, Carrots, and Pretzels" to her class for her birthday treat, and her classmates loved it! I brought some baby carrots and a bottle of ranch dressing, a bag of pretzels, and sliced apples and DD and her teacher helped me go around the tables asking kids who wants what. Some of them even asked for seconds!

Here are some non-food treats - A craft project goes over well with both teacher & kids. You bring everything ready for the teacher, stay and help if teacher wants the help. Also a book for the classroom library. You could paste your son's photo and an inscription on the inside cover.

How about pencils and stickers? I'm guessing you don't need to feed the children, and they can take home pencils and stickers. My older, elementary school children love receiving pencil grippers and cap erasers!

Check out Family Fun magazine online for some great healthy, fun snack ideas. I LOVE the magazine. It has marvelous ideas for all ages.

Strawberries and whipping cream, cool whip, or vanilla yogurt for dipping.
Bring in a cheese pizza from Little Ceasers and some carrot sticks and ranch dressing.
Have you tried Fruitabu's? Dried fruit on a thin roll of paper, tastes great. Get them in large box at Costco.
Animal crackers, less sweet than most regular cookies, the kids love the circus boxes or you can economize with small individual bags or a large bunk bag.

Hello,

It looks like you've had some good suggestions.

One thing that I've done is use fun mini cookie cutters to make "food shapes". I've done this with cheese on crackers, banana bread etc. The bad thing is that it does create some waste with what's left over from the cutouts. When I do it with cheese, I just use the scraps in casseroles or quesadillas. You could also do this with Jello. Good luck!

A.

I always buy Yoplait yogurt tubes for my sons class. They are healthy and fun to eat! You can also buy Horizon organic brand as well.

My daughter loves popcorn! So I got cute little plastic bags and filled each one with some popcorn. All the kids loved it!

Mini muffins are always good and so is spice cake made with applesauce.

Maybe make some banana bread w/o nuts for those with allergies. Substitute oil with applesauce for a more healthy treat. Or, any other treat with applesause instead of oil.

Hi S. -
I used to make whole wheat/bran muffins, in the tiny cupcake size, and just dust them with powdered sugar to give them the frosted look, and they went over very well 20 years ago in my daughter's kindergarten class. Little colored sprinkles might be made to stick without the powdered sugar on them. The size meant less waste if the children didn't like them after one bite, but most of the children enjoyed them.

Baking was not my Mom's thing, and we had a popcorn popper when I was a kid--and our school did double classrooms, so "the class" was 60 kids--, so birthday treats were often air-popped popcorn, with a little salt, which went over just fine with the kids.

S.,

What about rice crispy squares-- you can determine how much marshmellows you put in and the sugar content. Or fruit and jello cups with a sprinkle of whipped cream?

Molly

Homemade granola bars ar great!
Granola bars Base-
½ cup butter
1/3 cup sugar (or stevia)
1/3 cup honey
¼ cup flour
½ tsp. vanilla
¼ tsp. cinnamon
2 cups Rice Krispies (I used kashi puffed ceral)
2 cups rolled outs
Additions –
1-2 c. dried fruit bits, nuts, chocolate or yogurt chips, etc.
Heat oven to 350°.
Grease 9x13 pan
Melt butter on low heat.
Remove from heat and whisk in sugar, honey, flour, vanilla and cinnamon.
Add remaining ingredients and mix well.
Transfer mixture to baking dish. Use sheet of wax paper and press firmly into pan.
Bake 20 minutes, until golden brown.
Allow granola to cool for 1 hour in pan, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely befreoe cutting into bars.
Makes 16-24 rectangular bars.

I like the applesauce muffins from Deceptively Delicious. They have a strusel (sp?) topping which might aide in them seeming like cupcakes and not muffins.

Good luck!

Hello! some ideas i have done is take stickers and a box of raisins for each child. Or Cheese and crackers (you can buy them at costco) with Juice. Or even donate a book to the class. On his b-day take thim a balloon and go to their class read them a story and then donate the book. Hope these ideas are helpful!

If you'd like to have kind of traditional treats, make mini muffins in cute muffin wrappers with some kind of healthy recipe....nutless banana muffins, marie calendar's has a muffin mix that really good. Then make your own frosting with cream cheese (adds protein and calcium).

If the school allows peanut butter, there are lots of fun treats you can make, ants on a log--celery, peanut butter and raisins, spiders--ritz crackers, peanut butter, 8 pretzel sticks and raisins for eyes, deer--rice cakes, peanut butter, raisins, pretzels for antlers. You could also ask what theme or letter the class is currently working on and make a snack based on the theme, for example pancakes is for P, muffins for M you get the idea. You could also share a book to read that follows the theme if you choose and have the time.