My daughter just started going to 3K. I am looking for some snack ideas for when it is our turn. It seems like everyday they are eatting cheese or graham crackers. There are peanut allergies in the class room. Any ideas?
Sunbutter (made from crushed sunflower seeds) is a handy substitute for peanut butter. Do ants on a log -- celery sticks w/a little sunbutter on them, and dot raisins on top of that.
Cut up veggies or fruit, dehydrated fruit, yogurt, wheat crackers. The possibilities are endless. What snacks do u give your little one when she's at home?
Homemade granola bars, homemade snack mix (dried fruits, cheerios, goldfish, chocolate chips if you want), apples and fruit dip (kids love to dip things)
I taught pre-K for several years. Our favorite snacks were baggies filled with a variety of little snacks - a trail mix of sorts. Parents would put in cereal, vanilla wafers, raisins, mini marshmallows, goldfish, etc. Just a little bit of everything. The kids loved it and everyone could find something the enjoyed. Also, fresh fruit or veggies with dip. And banana bread or muffins were always a big hit. Hope this helps
Apple Sauce Cups
Yogurt
String Cheese
Cups of Fruit
Pudding Cups
Little boxes of raisins
I like throwing things into a big Ziplock bag. My standard is honey Teddy Grahams, chocolate Teddy Grahams, pretzels, and M&M's. You could also use Cheerios, chocolate chips, whatever you can think of. My son always says that his friends liked his snack...probably because there is more than one thing to choose from, great for even picky eaters!
When I used to take snacks into offices for my previous job, I got in a BIG rut with snack ideas. A friend suggested make your own trail mix one day.
Because of the peanut allergies, you could easily omit that, but put little containers of pretzels, perhaps Chex cereal, dried fruits, chocolate chips, etc. You can be as creative as possible and let them have fun choosing what to put in their bowl/bag.
Our daycare will experiment with seasonal fruits/veggies as well. They were stunned at how a group of 2-3 year-olds reacted to broccoli. LOVED IT!
Sugar free Jell-O and Puddings may be a good option (depending on how many kids are there).
This is such a fun time for your child to bring something to class to share. They carry soooo many prepackaged snacks in the stores now that you should have no trouble finding something! Fruit snacks, fruit rollups, snack packs of pudding, applesauce, yogurt (go-gurts too), jello with fruit, raisens, carrots/brocolli/celery/culliflower with ranch to dip, apple slices, clementine cuties (small oranges, easy to peal, no seeds), pretzels, crackers/cookies of every kind, teddy grahams, granola bars, cereal bars, craisens, etc. Most grocery stores carry these types of things either pre-packaged in smaller individual sizes or in individual containers. In the produce section you can usually find bags of cleaned and cut up veggies, and even fruits (like apples/berries) in smaller cups or already cleaned and cut up.
The key here is probably your preschool requires that snacks be brought in their original packaging, and that they all be purchased versus homemade. Fortunately, food manufacturers have responded to this be creating products that help to make this simple. If you want to make your treats more special or have a homemade touch, check out www.familyfun.com for some great ideas of decorating prepackaged treats. You can assemble boxes and bags with tape and ribbons to make cars or animals. Also, teachers always love fresh fruit because it helps kids to have a healthy diet and stay off those sugar highs! Have fun!
cut up a seedless watermelon, some oranges, a banana, any kind of fruit. jicama (a vegetable that looks like a large potato) is also yummy.
Craisons with multi grain cheerios are a big hit at our house. Animal crackers with half a banana are also. Good luck.
bananas are cheap! We've also done canned/jar fruit (pears, peaches, etc). Hard to find low sugar without splenda though...
If your school system is anything like our it has to be store bought. My son has peanut allergy so I know Nutri grain bars are ok. Fresh fruit is nice grapes, oranges, apples etc. I know some dried fruits are good the ones with pineapple,banana chips, apriocots, and raisin my 3 year old loves it. Hope this helps.
cherry tomatoes & string cheese
go-gurts
grapes
nutrigrain bars
pita and hummus or some other bean dip
How about banana slices and nilla wafers - the kids can stack them like sandwiches and eat them.
Or sun chips, baked potato chips, some of those 100-calorie pack snacks are pretty good - I think you can get variety boxes of individual bags.
I wonder if her teacher would be willing to integrate a snack idea into class. Perhaps the class together could bake gingerbread cookies (there are simple recipes available - one of the teachers at the Head Start where I work recently made them with her half-day class) - then you could bring frosting and other decorations and they could make their own little gingerbread men and eat them.
Cheerios, dried fruit like dried apples and or bananas,
pretzels, veggie chips, non-refridgerated puddings, yoghurt covered snacks, Sunbutter that is a substitute for Peanut Butter. It is soy based spread on pretzels or RITZ crackers.
Our child has two peanut adverse kids in one of her classes. A study in the East possibly at Johns Hopkins experimented with treating Peanut Allergy like other allergies. With careful reintroduction of the allergan over time allowing the child to build acceptance of the allergan with less reaction. The study was very successful it reported! That would be an ideal solution and then peanut butter snacks someday could be back in the schools! Our elementary school has a special table in the lunchroom for kids that have a peanut based mean they bring from home so they can still eat it. For classes like another commented the items must be store bought and sealed in the past 1-2 yrs that became the rule.
