Thursday, January 20, 2011

Simple and Healthy Snacks for Homeschool Kids

Photo from Kara's Party Ideas, a fabulous site for birthday party planning!
This is actually part of a green, orange, & blue 1st bday party.

The past year has been an interesting one for us in regards to snacking. Little Bill went through a "goldfish" stage (you know, those cheese crackers shaped like fish). It's all the kid wanted to eat every single time he was hungry. At the same time, Jack started growing like, well, a teenage boy. So he is wanting food at every turn. Finally at my wit's end at trying to keep these boys fed and healthily at that, I created a snack system.

I went out and bought a pack of little storage containers for Little Bill. I start off my week, or every few days, by filling these with apple sauce, yogurt, veggie sticks & dip, garbanzo beans, nuts & seeds, cheese cubes, fruit pieces, graham crackers & peanut butter, and the occasional treat of something like jello squares. I fill them all up, pop them in the fridge, and when he says he is hungry during the day, I tell him (with confidence that he is eating healthily) that he can choose any snack container in the fridge to munch on.

I did the same thing, with bigger storage containers, for Jack. His appetite is much bigger; he needs things that are healthy but that are more filling, so for him I pack: potatoes in some form, ramen noodles (the healthy kind, not the 17-cent Walmart kind), peanut butter bagels, hard-boiled eggs, cheese & crackers, nuts & seeds, granola to add milk to, flavored brown rice or whole grain cous cous, etc. Last year I made them for him and popped them into the fridge for when he would tell me he's hungry. What was I thinking? The kid is 15! My love of mommy-ing sometimes clouds my judgement of what the kids should be doing for themselves. This year he prepares the food and fills the containers himself! But this way, he always has healthy, filling snacks when a craving hits.

What do you do for snacks for your hungry homeschoolers?

{This is an article moved from the old typepad site.}


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