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I love the idea of using bright, colorful fruit to recreate some of the beautiful scenes we see in nature. Although snail shells are not known to be this bright, the two colors I used contrast themselves to show the beautiful pattern that these shells naturally have.
Slice a banana in half lengthwise to make the snail’s body. Place a ground of oatmeal beneath him.
Add a raisin eye and a sliced blueberry for a mouth. Use a tiny bit of the other half of the banana for some antennae.
For the shell, use contrasting fruits like raspberries and grapes to form a swirly shell look as shown above.
This one is great to make after reading a book like this:
(linked HERE)
Solar System
A great excuse to give our kids a variety of fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses in one snack (while educating them at the same time), is to make the Solar System with them! Teach your children about the planets in our Solar System (yes, I know Pluto is no longer considered a planet…read on), and give them a healthy snack at the same time!
Using snacks is an amazing way to teach your young child about science. Take a look at our Volcano post for a good example of this!
I found foods to use for each planet first, then I handed each to my daughter one at a time and had her repeat the names of the planets with me in order. As she repeated each one, she laid it on the plate (and I spaced them out a little more for the picture). She normally doesn’t like pepperoni but she ate it with this snack!
Below is a list of which foods I used for each planet:
Sun: mandarin orange, top sliced off and peeled but not separated
Mercury: a red grape
Venus: celery
Earth: kiwi
Mars: strawberry
Jupiter: pepperoni
Saturn: cheddar cheese
Uranus: a slice of string cheese
Neptune: ham
Pluto: (No longer technically a planet) corn
I added Pluto as a way to show my daughter that it was once a part of the solar system but is no longer.
And this one is another solar system I made last week showing the lines of orbit that each planet has.
I prefer the first version, which do you prefer?
The solar system above was made to show how each planet orbits the sun in our galaxy, the milky way.
I made the lines in the photo below as well as the stars in the photos above using this technique:
Variations:
Make your planets out of anything you have in the house that you can cut into circular shapes. Use your own creativity for this one!
If you enjoyed this post, check out our other educational snacks
Volcano Egyptian Pyramids Alphabet Lunch (practice your ABC’s) Stoplight (to learn about traffic rules) The Flood Jonah in the Big Fish David and Goliath Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? (Includes a lunch and learning activity) Joshua and the Battle of Jericho Snowflake Pancakes (plus 25 great educational activities for the snow)
Flower Pot Snack
When my daughter and I first started making food art, one of the first creative snacks we thought of was this basket of flowers.
The best thing about making a flower arrangement is that it is totally customizable. You can make flower out of just about any nutritious food. Fruits and vegetables are especially perfect because of their bright, beautiful colors.
I like this snack because of the variety of food groups represented, as well as the way it showcases the beautiful colors of the fruits and veggies.
Other great foods to use for flowers:
strawberries
peaches
nectarines
avocado
watermelon
apples
avocado
bell pepper
hummus: pipe onto plate with a beautiful tip using your cake decorating supplies!
Use your imagination! I’m sure you will come up with a fantastic plate! Make one today!
If you enjoyed this snack, you might like our other flower snacks, as well as our nature inspired snacks and everyday scenes.
(Sharing HERE)
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Disney’s "Up" Lunch
One of our favorite Disney movies is their film”Up”. It is a such a good movie to watch with the kids. We love making cute snacks to go along with our favorite Disney movies like we did for with Mike Wazowski from Monster’s Inc, Mickey Mouse,
was so creative, and what I love about having lots of fruits and vegetables in the house is the ability to take all those colors and use them to create something like this. The balloons are made of bananas, green grapes, strawberries, blueberries, carrots, and red grapes. Shape each fruit or veggie like a circle. Next, make your house. I used half of a graham cracker and a triangle Triscuit cracker for the roof. Windows are made of thin wheels of string cheese. I took that same string cheese and peeled it into thin pieces to use as the strings for the balloons. Finish off the house with a banana wheel cut into a rectangle shape, and you have a fabulous and colorful “Up” lunch.
(linked HERE)
I Love You
This Valentines Day inspired snack is plain yogurt served in a heart shaped cookie cutter with grapes, blueberries, and strawberries along with some drizzled honey over top. The “I” is made of celery and the “u” is made of sliced up string cheese.
A sweet lunch like this is one way I show my little girl how much I love her!
Try using one of your favorite cookie cutters to jazz up your child’s yogurt and fruit snack anytime!
Jonah in the Big Fish
Create the story of Jonah in the belly of the big fish! Big Fish: cantaloupe sliced through without cutting in half; Jonah: Baby carrot with raisin eyes; Spout: cheerios; Eyes and Mouth of Fish: red grapes.
Read the story of Jonah and the Big Fish (the book of Jonah in the Old Testament) or in this great Bible for kids.
(linked HERE)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
We all love the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
Take a morning and read the story with your child, then talk about all the foods the caterpillar ate, and perhaps talk about which of the foods he ate were nutritious and which were not.
Then, create him yourself! Take a large strawberry and slice to create his head. Next, create his eyes by using little bits of pineapple cut into circles and place sliced green jelly belly candies in front. Form his body with green grapes , carrot feet, raisin mouth, and ham antennae. He is walking on an oatmeal ground and taking in the cheddar cheese sun!
(linked HERE)
Stopilght
This lunch was inspired when, on the way home from the grocery store, my daughter, as is typical, asked what we could make for her creative lunch.
As we were driving at the time, I began to look around and decided that we could make a stoplight like the one I was approaching. It was the perfect opportunity to reinforce the girls’ knowledge of what each light means, and why we have stoplights.
To create the post, cut a peanut butter sandwich into thin sections and arrange as shown above. Next, cut a strawberry, a yellow pepper (banana would work too), and a green grape to similar sizes. Create the street below by slicing some cheese into thin strips and arrange to form a street.