Creative Kid Snacks

make fun of lunch!

Santa Claus Panini

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Ingredients:

1-2 slices turkey breast
2 slices of cheese
2 raisins
5 strawberries
1/2 cup cottage cheese

Directions:

First, assemble a turkey and cheese panini sandwich by placing meat between two slices of cheese (so that cheese is between meat and each slice of bread).  Cook sandwich in a panini press or on the stovetop as you would a grilled cheese.

After placing it on the plate, spoon some cottage cheese around the bottom of the plate and leave a little gap where Santa’s mouth would be. Note: the sandwich is placed with the rounded side of the bread down.

Next, create his hat and nose with some strawberries.  Finish the look of the hat with a little whipped cream (or cottage cheese), and finish with some raisin eyes.

This one was a favorite!

Baby Jesus in the Manger

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“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  Isaiah 9:6
The true meaning of Christmas is awesome story of God sending his son Jesus to be born into the world, in a humble stable, to save the world from sin.  
I’ve always loved the way Linus tells the story in the Peanuts Christmas special!

 

 

I’ve already shared some of the festive Christmas snacks I’ve made for my kids to get them excited about the season (as if they need any help with that)!  However, the real reason we celebrate Christmas is because Jesus was born!  The miracle of His birth and the story of God’s amazing love for mankind still blows me away. 
Luke 2 tells this awesome story.  Read that or read about the birth of Jesus in the Children’s Bible.  
After that, make this lunch together.

Baby Jesus is a baby carrot sliced in half to lay flat.  He is lying in a manger made of a peanut butter sandwich.  He is wrapped in swaddling clothes of string cheese peeled and wrapped around him.  His eyes are raisins.  The stable is made of carrots sliced to lay flat, and the hay and the star are made of organic colby jack cheese.  I use a pizza slicer to create the thin strips of cheese to look like hay.  The support for the manger is celery shaped like an “x”.

As a finishing touch, Grace and I sang “Away in a Manger” together right before she ate!

(Linking up HERE)




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Healthy Christmas Snacks for the Kids

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Looking for some healthy snacks to serve this Christmas?

Get the kids into the Christmas season with these fun snacks and lunches!

#1:  Veggie Christmas Tree

Use cut celery arrange on an angle to create the shape of the tree.  Slice a baby carrot into wheels for the ornaments.  Cut a yellow pepper into the shape of a star for the top of the tree.
Create the trunk by rolling a slice of deli ham into a one inch wide roll-up and folding it in half.  Slice the bottom off to create a straight line if you wish.
My favorite part of this snack are the snowflakes.  I created them by slicing some string cheese into wheels, then carefully slicing little triangles out of them (from the outside in).
Serve with a little ranch for dipping, and enjoy!
(My kids ate this whole snack up!  So much good fiber and protein!)
Variations:
Use cucumbers for the tree (sliced in “sticks”)
Use a carrot or two for the trunk and cherry tomatoes for the ornaments
Use yogurt for the snowflakes

#2: Santa Panini Sandwich

I made this snack by first making a turkey and cheese panini sandwich on our Cuisinart Panini grill.

After placing it on the plate, I spooned some cottage cheese around the bottom of the plate and left a little gap where Santa’s mouth would be. Note: the sandwich is placed with the rounded side of the bread down.

Next, I created his hat and nose with some strawberries.  Finish the look of the hat with a little whipped cream and finish with some raisin eyes.

This one was a favorite!

#3: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

I made Rudolph out of a peanut butter sandwich.  Leave the round (top) part of the bread in tact, then slice into an oval for the main part of the body as shown.

From the remaining portion, slice four thin legs and a head.  Think of cutting the shape of a shoe for the head.  Add a raisin eye, a strawberry nose, and two pretzel antlers.

A little pine tree made of sugar snap peas completes the look of Rudolph’s flight through the air!

#4: Cottage Cheese Snowman

Meet one of the first creative snacks ever created.

Our sweet snowman has a cottage cheese body , raisin eyes and buttons, 1/2 a baby carrot for a nose, and celery sticks for arms.

Scoop the cottage cheese onto the plate with a small spoon into three circles.  Slice your baby carrot in half and add for his nose.  Place his eyes and buttons on, and finish with arms.  Done!

You can’t get much healthier than this for a festive winter snack!

Variations:
Use pretzels for his arms to look more like sticks
Use yogurt for his body
Use blueberries for his buttons

#5: Holiday Wreath

My daughter Grace asked for a wreath for lunch.  I decided to go with celery for the greenery as opposed to lettuce or cucumbers, which, depending upon your child’s taste buds, you could definitely use.  My girls love celery, so I went with that.

Next I added carrots and grapes sliced up for the “berries” of the wreath.  You could use cherry tomatoes, red bell peppers, or even strawberries here, but I used what I had on hand.

The bow was made out of a slice of ham.  I cut one full slice from the deli into quarters, and rolled each up as big as I wanted it to be for the parts of the bow.

Once all that was done, I snapped the photo.

Before I served it, though, I had the idea to add some background “snow”!

This is how I served it, and, as usual, it was gobbled up!

Which version do you like better?  I really can’t decide.  This second one is definitely more filling for lunch, though, and the girls do love their cottage cheese.   So for that reason alone, I know my kids would vote version 2!

(Linking up HERE)

Healthy Halloween Snacks

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Healthy Halloween Snacks are hard to come by sometimes.  For those of us who are into providing healthy Halloween Snacks, here are two to try.
Create a spooky spider in his web!
Peel string cheese and lay it on the plate in a pentagon shape starting on the outside layer.  Move inward, creating another smaller pentagon within the first, and so on.  I ended up with four layers of pentagons.  Next, lay additional string cheese at the junctions of the different corners, and anywhere else you’d like, until you have what looks like a web!
Next, slice a grape in half for the spider’s body.  Thinly slice the other half of that grape plus half of another one to create the spider’s legs.
Finally, add some raisin eyes, and he is finished!
This is the second of two snacks for the season I’ve shown you.
Here is the other healthy Halloween snack for you to try!
Read all about him HERE.

 

Columbus Day Snack

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Columbus Day is celebrated the second Monday in October across the United States.

 

Teach the kiddos about why we celebrate Columbus Day with this easy snack!  Take one apple and slice to make the bases of each ship.  Next, slice a stick of celery to make the pole for the sail.  Finally, add a sail by using a cracker (I used Wheat Thins) and add a little sun made of cheese.
To create the waves as well as the names on the ships, use the following method with some yogurt:

 

Variations:
Use cheese for the sails (those square slices of cheese would work great)
Use little sandwich cut-outs for the boats
Make the pole out of a carrot stick
Use your imagination!

(Linking up HERE)

 

Healthy Christmas Tree Snack

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Healthy Christmas Tree Snack

Ingredients:

1-2 stalks celery
1 slice ham
1-2 baby carrots
1 cheese stick
small section of a yellow pepper

Directions:

Use cut celery arrange on an angle to create the shape of the tree.  Slice a baby carrot into wheels for the ornaments.  Cut a yellow pepper into the shape of a star for the top of the tree.
Create the trunk by rolling a slice of deli ham into a one inch wide roll-up and folding it in half.  Slice the bottom off to create a straight line if you wish.
My favorite part of this snack are the snowflakes.  I created them by slicing some string cheese into wheels, then carefully slicing little triangles out of them (from the outside in).
Serve with a little ranch for dipping, and enjoy!
(My kids ate this whole snack up!  So much good fiber and protein!)

Variations:
Use cucumbers for the tree (sliced in “sticks”)
Use a carrot or two for the trunk and cherry tomatoes for the ornaments
Use yogurt for the snowflakes

Jesus on the Cross

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Made on Good Friday, Jesus is made out of a baby carrot.  The main body lies flat because the carrot was sliced in half.  Jesus’ eyes are tiny bits of raisin, his crown of thorns – pretzels, and the cross is a peanut butter sandwich cut into the right shape.  The hill is made of banana.
Grace (age 4) actually asked me to make this one as we had talked all day that day about what Good Friday was about.  To her, this was not morbid or disturbing in any way; rather, it was a beautiful reminder of the amazing love that God had for us sending His son Jesus to die for us in this way.  It was the love of our savior in the form of our lunch.  

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Graduation Day

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For my daughter Grace’s preschool graduation day lunch, I used toast with blackberry jam to make a graduation cap.  A piece of string cheese cut in half lengthwise became the tassels and the diploma.  Diploma is tied with a slice of green onion (which Grace of course did not eat).  Watermelon on the side completed this lunch.

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Snowman

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Who’s ready for a fun winter edible craft?  Today we are making a cottage cheese snowman.  I can’t think of a better way to get the kids to eat cottage cheese than making it into a little snowman!
Snowman edible craft | Creative Kid Snacks

Ingredients:

1/2 – 3/4 cup cottage cheese
raisins (4-5)
1/2 a baby carrot
2 celery sticks
Scoop the cottage cheese onto the plate with a small spoon into three circles.  Slice your baby carrot in half and add for his nose.  Place his eyes and buttons on, and finish with arms.  Done!
This guy was one of the first creative snacks ever created.  You can’t get much healthier than this for a festive winter snack!
 

Variations:

Use pretzels for his arms to look more like sticks
Use yogurt for his body
Use blueberries for his buttons
Did you enjoy today’s snack?  Check out our other winter snacks.
Learn more about this blog here.
 

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Copyright Note

Please feel free to use any of these ideas with your children at home, school, church, or anywhere you are inspired to make fun of lunch. If you would like to share a post on a blog or site, you may use one picture so long as you include a link to the original post. Please do not re-post the whole article or distribute printed-out content without written permission from the original author.

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