A Love-ly Snack!

Celebrate Valentine's Day or surprise your loved one with heart-shaped toast!

 Materials:  Sliced bread, strawberry cream cheese, sprinkles, butter knife, heart-shaped cookie cutter, toaster (optional)

 Give each child a slice of bread. They may toast it, if they want. Encourage them to place the cookie cutter on top of the bread and gently press down.

 Gently remove the cookie cutter and reveal the new shape of your bread.  Discard the remaining pieces.

Encourage your child/ren to gently spread some strawberry cream cheese onto their heart.

 Add a bit of sprinkles on top.  If you do not want children putting their fingers into the sprinkle bowl, you may either scoop some onto their plate and they can sprinkle it on or you may put the sprinkles into a shaker and they may shake them on.

If you are having a Valentine's Party, serve these with some strawberry milk and fresh strawberries. Yum!

Penguin Treats

Doing a unit on polar animals or, more specifically, penguins?  After discussing penguin's diets have your little "penguins" make a fishy snack of their own!  Goldfish crackers represent fish and the shelled sunflower seeds represent tiny krill (tiny shrimp-like creatures), both foods that penguins love to eat!

 Materials:  Sandwich bags, 3 bowls,  measuring spoons and cups, shelled sunflower seeds, original goldfish crackers, pretzel goldfish crackers, note cards, sharpie

 Separate sunflower seeds, original goldfish crackers, and pretzel goldfish crackers into 3 bowls.

 Write measurements onto note cards and place in front of the appropriate bowl.  I did 1 tbsp. for sunflower seeds and 1/4 cup each for the two types of crackers.

 You may add the measuring tool you would like the kids to use by each bowl  OR

 add the whole set and let the children find the correct measuring spoon after reading the note card.

 You may keep all the sandwich bags at the center so kids can make the snack on their own time or you may also pass bags out yourself.  If you want, you can label each bag before-hand with the children's names or with "______'s Penguin Treats".   If you label them, you can leave them at the center and they can practice name recognition by finding their bag.

 Children may go to the center and use the appropriate measuring tools to add "penguin food" into their sandwich bags.

They can eat their penguin snack while they listen to their favorite penguin story!

Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester is part of series of books that are some of my favorites.

MLK Friendship Salad

Martin Luther King's birthday falls on Monday, January 21st this year.  What better way to celebrate than to make a "friendship" salad!  Ahead of time, send a note home with your kids asking them to bring in their favorite fruit.  Have children cut and combine all their fruit into a big bowl and enjoy the healthy snack they worked together to make.  If you will be making this salad at home with your child/ren to celebrate MLK's birthday and accomplishments, use the fruit as a metaphor to teach MLK's dream.  Explain that fruit are like people, there are many different types and they all look and taste different but in the end they are all the same; they are all fruit.  MLK wanted all people to get along and have equal rights. Teach integration by having your child combine all the different kinds of fruit (people) into the same bowl.  You may further explain racial segregation, if you wish, in simple terms by saying that not all children were allowed to attend the same schools or drink from the same water fountains just because of the color of their skin.

 Materials:  Various fruits, large bowl, knives (plastic or butter knives and paring knife), cutting board, apple corer, paper plates and forks.

 Make sure to wash all fruit before you begin.  If you have a sink that is readily available to your child/ren have them participate in the washing.  This would be a good time to talk about the importance of hand washing and kitchen safety.

 Start cutting fruit.  Let children participate with as much preparation as possible while still being safe.  If you position the apple corer, they can try to push down on the apple corer.  Just make sure to supervise all sharp objects at all times.  When finished with a sharp object, I would always put it out of reach.

 Cutting a banana is one of the easiest to do for youngsters.  Children as young as two years old can do this on their own. Just make sure to give them a tool that is not very sharp such as a plastic knife or a butter knife.

 Cutting the stems off of a strawberry is also fairly easy and can be done by your child/ren.

 Lastly, peeling tangerines (cuties) is something they can do on their own, considering you start it off for them.

Some of the other fruits in our salad are a bit more difficult to cut, so I did them on my own.  I cut the orange and the pear.  It is okay if you cut some of the fruit...the children will be very busy cutting up the rest of the fruit on their own.  Mix up your salad and enjoy!  Look at all those cool multi-colored fruit....everyone is so unique!

Favorite Foods Booklet

Help your child make an accordion-style booklet of their favorite foods.  This activity can be done within a wide range of ages from toddlers to elementary age just by tweaking a few elements; I will make notes as we go along on how to adapt it for various abilities.

 Materials: Grocery circulars, large index cards, scissors, glue stick, sharpie, scotch tape.

The booklet may be made by you or your children, depending on their abilities.  I used four large index cards for the booklet I made.

 Fold each index card in half.  If you are doing this activity with younger children, you might want to use more index cards and leave them unfolded.  The reason for this is that younger children might need more space to work with.  For toddler age you might even want to use an even bigger canvas that you can make from folding construction paper instead.

 Use scotch tape to connect all the folded index cards together.

 The booklet should look like this when you are done taping it together.

 On the outside of the first index card you may label the booklet.  I labeled mine Foods I Like.  If your child knows how to or is learning how to write, encourage them to write the title on their own.

 Have children look through grocery circulars and cut out their favorite foods.  For younger children, have some pre-cut foods that they can choose from.

 Glue one food to each half of the index card.

 It should look something like this.

 Depending on the interest and attention span of the child they may also continue to add pictures to the back side of the index cards.  I only did the front sides here.

 You may also label each picture and read it together with your child/ren.  If your children knows or is practicing writing, let them label each picture.  Another alternative to this activity is letting children draw pictures of their favorite food instead of cutting out pictures.

Encourage your child/ren to "read" their books to family and friends!

Teddy Bear Toast

Bears love honey, and your little ones will too! In this cooking activity, adults help children make bear-shaped toast topped with honey-butter and cinnamon sugar! Yum!

 Materials:  Toaster, sliced bread, whipped butter, honey, cinnamon, sugar, teddy bear cookie cutter, bowl, spoons, butter knives.

 Before you start this activity with the children, prepare the honey-butter and cinnamon-sugar so that it is ready for children to use.  To make the honey butter, simply mix equal parts butter and honey.

 To make the cinnamon-sugar, simply combine cinnamon and sugar.  You can either combine them in a small bowl and children can sprinkle it over their toast with their fingers or you can put the mixture into a spice jar and they can shake it over their toast.

 Children may put their slice of bread into the toaster. Children should always be supervised while using the toaster. This would also be a good time to talk about hot surfaces; which parts of the toaster could be touched and which should not because you may get burned.

 When the toast is ready, children may use the cookie cutter to cut into the bread. 

 Spread the honey-butter onto the toast.

 Sprinkle cinnamon-sugar on top.

Enjoy!