Under the Sea

April 8, 2013 By

“Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid is one of our all-time favorite movie songs.  It just gets stuck in our head every time we listen to it!

We’ve been in a bit of a whirlwind in life lately, so Sunday night we decided to veg and have a family movie night.  Our movie of choice was The Little Mermaid.

Today’s snack is inspired by Sebastain’s famous song “Under the Sea”.

"Under the Sea" kids snack with avocados, oatmeal, strawberries, and cheese. So fun! | CreativeKidSnacks.com
Create these fun little sea creatures using the following ingredients:

1/2 cup cooked oatmeal

1/4 avocado, sliced

1 strawberry

1/2 slick string cheese

3 grapes

goldfish crackers

1 teaspoon yogurt

Assemble:

Spoon your oatmeal onto the bottom of the plate for the ocean floor.

Next, arrange your avocado slices to look like a beautiful ocean plant.

Slice your strawberry in half so it lies flat on the plate and slice again into 6-8 thin strips to use as the crab’s arms and legs.

Slice 1/2 of your string cheese from the bottom into several small sections.  I think this little guy looks like one of Nemo’s little classmates.  (Now we are cross-referencing Disney movies!).

Slice grapes in half to lay flat onto the plate, and create little tails by slicing remaining portion of grape in half.

Add goldfish crackers.

**Optional: add little eyes to some of the creatures using a food marker

You are now ready to draw your waves at the top of the plate to complete the “Under the Sea” look.  I love to use the following technique:

If you enjoyed today’s snack, you’d also probably like our other Disney inspired snacks as well as our Nature themed plates!

(Sharing HERE)

Did you enjoy today’s snack?  Learn more about this blog here.

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Butterfly Quesadilla + Weekly Kids Co-op

March 21, 2013 By

Butterflies are a sign of new life.  Spring always gets me motivated to get outside, enjoy nature, and celebrate it with our food, too!  My daughter has been very in to butterflies lately, and she has even requested a rainbow butterfly birthday party!  We’ve already made delicious fruit butterfly for a snack, and today’s butterfly will be a lunchtime butterfly treat.

Butterfly Quesadillas

Buttefly quesadillas by creativekidsnacks.com. Super easy and so fun!

I have two daughters.  I made one quesadilla with a 8-inch tortillas, (I love to use the whole wheat or multi-grain tortilla wraps), and cut it into 4 equal portions.  Place two quesadilla “wings” on your plate.

Create the body by slicing the end off of some beautiful green grapes and laying them on your plate to look like a body.

Thinly slice a baby carrot into strips to use for antennae, and place two blueberries on top of the carrots to complete the look.

If you feel so inclined, you could even use a food marker to draw a happy face on the top grape for your butterfly.

That’s it!  Super easy and so fun for the kids.

Butterfly Quesadilla from creativekidsnacks.com. Super easy and so fun for the kids!

If you enjoyed this, check out our other animal snacks, as well as our nature themed snacks.  The kids will love them!  I know mine did!

By the way, I found another blogger who has another take on the butterfly quesadillas.  Check her version out here!

(Sharing HERE)

Did you enjoy today’s snack?  Learn more about this blog here.

 

And now it’s time for the Weekly Kids Co-op!

As moms, we are constantly on the lookout for great teaching tools and resources to use with our children.  I know I always benefit from seeing the creativity of others as they share lessons, activities, crafts, food, and more in their various blogs.  Mommy bloggers have become popular for a good reason: information is power.  Right, ladies?

The Weekly Kids Co-Op

The Weekly Kids Co-op is one of my very favorite such resources.  I have been linking my snacks to this link party for months now, and I am excited to be able to co-host it here at Creative Kid Snacks.

If you are a blogger, link up your kid related posts to share with all of us eager beaver mommas.  If you are a mom, take some time to look through all of the great ideas for teaching and playing with our kids.  Pin what you love.  Like I said before, information is power!

This party will take place every Thursday at Creative Kid Snacks.  You will find it hosted on several other blogs, but the days the party goes live will vary from blog to blog.

Get ready for all the great ideas!  Link, share, and enjoy!


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Tangled

March 11, 2013 By

My kids love Disney’s Tangled.  If you’ve seen our Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Lion King, Monster’s Inc, “Up” and Peter Pan snacks, you can tell that we are big Disney fans.  Tangled is no exception.

Rapunzel from #Disney's "Tangled" - from creativekidsnacks.com

To create Rapunzel, I sliced 12-14 red grapes in half lengthwise.  I arranged them on the plate to look like her dress.  Making the dress first helps to scale the head, feet, and arms.  Next, cut a slice of white cheese (I used mozzarella) into shape for a neck, feet, arms and head.  I wasn’t ambitious enough to create hands with tiny little fingers using cheese, so I hid her arms behind her hair.  For her lips I used a tiny slice of a grape, two tiny currants for eyes, and a small slice of cheese for her nose.

Next, boil a small handful of thin spaghetti noodles until cooked.  You can make a quick cheese sauce for it if desired, or just use a little olive oil or butter and place it right onto the plate.

Finish the scene with some celery grass and a couple orange tulips made from carrots.

I loved the scene in the movie where Rapunzel feels the grass and the earth for the first time.  This lunch was pattered after that.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to check out our other Disney snacks: Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Lion King, Monster’s Inc, “Up” and Peter Pan

(Sharing HERE)

Did you enjoy today’s snack?  Learn more about this blog here.

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Butterfly

March 4, 2013 By

When Spring starts to peek around the corner after Winter finally ends, it’s fun to embrace the feeling of new life, warmth, brightness, and outdoor fun.  Nothing says new life to me like a butterfly!  The butterfly snack we have for you today is refreshing, super healthy, and beautiful for the kids to enjoy.

Butterfly Snack made of fruit from creativekidsnacks.com

Ingredients:

1 piece string cheese.  (You can also use just half of one, sliced lengthwise).

8-10 green grapes, sliced in half

3 strawberries

1 baby carrot

Directions:

To make this guy, simply place a piece of string cheese in the center of the plate.  Next, slice your green grapes in half and lie them on the plate as the outline of the butterfly’s two wings.  Slice strawberries and fill in the outline formed by the grapes.  Next, slice two round slices from the end of a baby carrot.  Slice two thin sticks, and slice a tiny bit off each stick.  Arrange antennae as shown, place two tiny carrot bits on the string cheese for eyes.  Enjoy!

Continue the Fun with a “READ.PLAY.EAT” activity

READ.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is such a classic story book!  Just like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is an Eric Carle staple I’ll bet most of us have in our bookshelves (if not memorized) and read often.  I know it’s been a favorite for my girls.

The story is told of a caterpillar that hatches from an egg, grows, and eats and eats and eats until he is so full that he becomes big and fat.  He builds his cocoon, stays inside for more than two weeks, and becomes a beautiful butterfly.  It’s the classic metamorphosis story.

 

PLAY.

Create a “beautiful butterfly” with your child that they can play with over and over again.  Follow the simple steps shown below:

Butterfly Craft

My girls love to make these, and they only take about 5 minutes.  I love them because they aren’t messy, and they don’t involve too much skill on the parent’s part!  We have quite a collection, and my oldest daughter Grace plays with hers often.  She loves to hold the butterfly by the stick and swing him around to flap his wings.

It is also fun to make each one unique and different.  One thing we have done is make a butterfly for everyone in the family.  The kids have fun deciding which colors, patterns, and designs best reflect each person.  So fun!

 

EAT.

Make a healthy caterpillar for lunch!

Very Hungry Caterpillar: Creative Kid Snacks

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!

If you enjoyed this, check out our other animal snacks, as well as our nature themed snacks.  The kids will love them!  I know mine did!

(Sharing HERE)

Did you enjoy today’s snack?  Learn more about this blog here.

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Joshua and the battle of Jericho

November 6, 2012 By
Joshua 6:1-27 tells the story of the great city of Jericho with walls so high and fortified that no adversary could break through.  God called the Israelite leader Joshua to march around the city with the priests blowing their trumpets of ram’s horns in front of the ark of the covenant for six days.  On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times and all of the Israelite people were to shout.  When this happened, God told Joshua, the great walls of the city would come crashing down, and, in this way, the Lord would give the city over to His people.
Read this story with your child, or read the story from the children’s bible (HEREis the one we use), and then create this story for lunch!
Build walls using grapes sliced in half, laid flat side down onto the plate.  Next, slice baby carrots in half lengthwise and lay a couple of them down to be the Israelites.  Thinly slice the other half of the baby carrot and cut to shape for arms and legs.  Complete the scene with some green celery grass below the city walls and add two small triangular slices of pineapple for the priest’s horns.  A nice sun in the sky completes the picture.
(By the way, once I saw the photo, I realized that the Jericho guy looks like he’s smiling . . . oops!  That was supposed to be a round mouth saying “oh no!”)
Once this lunch was complete and we retold the story, Grace “tore the walls down” as they fell in the story.  She had fun with that!
Finally, I sliced up the “grass” below the city for her to dip into her peanut butter.
Variations:
Build the wall with other fruit like strawberries, bananas, or blueberries.
Use pineapple for the sun, or cheese for the trumpets.
Enjoy!
Check out our other bible stories HERE.
(Linking up with these fine parties)

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Healthy Halloween Snacks

October 28, 2012 By

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.

 

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READ.PLAY.EAT – Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes

October 12, 2012 By

READ.

By Margie Palatini

Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes is an adorable story about a fox trying to reach grapes high up in a tree and getting all of his friends to help him.  He thinks he is the smartest of all the creatures in the forest, so he is boss and tells all of his friends how they are to help.  Even though each individual friend could have done the job itself using its own skills, the fox, in his pride, insists on telling everyone what do to.  After all of the failed attempts by the fox and his crew, the friends get the grapes on their own and the fox goes away empty handed and ashamed.  It’s a really fun read, and the kids start to predict what will happen as each animal friend comes into the picture.
PLAY.

 

Create an obstacle challenge for your kids to figure out.  


We chose to place a shoe up in a tree and tell Grace that it was her responsibility to get it down (with her own hands) and to figure out how to do it.  Just like the fox did!

 

As you move from left to right across each row, you can see the order of events for how she went about getting the shoe.  (Thanks Daddy for the shoe!)

 

Right away she asked her dad to stand near the tree so she could climb on him.

 

When asked how she would get up on dad’s shoulders, she went down to the picnic table and asked us to bring it over as a way for her to get higher.

 

She realized she had to ask Dad to sit down so she could climb on his shoulders.

 

When he stood back up with her on his shoulders and his feet on the ground, they still were not tall enough.  


Finally, she asked Jesse to stand on the picnic table seat so they could reach.  Success!

 

EAT.

You can create the story for lunch by using a slice of summer sausage cut into a triangle, 4 sticks, and two crescent shapes to make the fox.  Next, make a tree by slicing a peanut butter sandwich as shown.  Use some cut celery for the ground and a couple of the celery leaves for the tree tops.  Finally, add the grapes, and your child will be delighted to see the story come alive!

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A Pair of Pair Snacks

October 1, 2012 By

Have a play date coming up?  Need a 45 second snack for a crowd?  Try one of these snacks!

Create two little flowers by peeling a clementine and arranging it as petals.  Next, slice some green grapes in half to make the stems, and finish with a ground of cereal.  I used Kix.  Easy and fun!

For something a bit more filling and nutritious, create little people out of a slice of cheese (I used organic Colby Jack from Costco), add blueberry eyes and a red grape mouth.  Place carrots on either side of the cheese to make their arms.  Use some sliced bananas for some funky hair, and finish with two little turkey legs.
There you have two fun little snacks that each take less than a minute or two to make!

More Play Date Snacks

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Snail

August 28, 2012 By
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:
About this link
(linked HERE)
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Solar System

August 27, 2012 By
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)

 

 

 

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